To see one of our great military hospitals to-day is indeed an inspiring sight. To walk through the bright, airy wards, to glance into the spotless theatres, to watch the preparation of appetising meals in the big kitchens, and to examine some of the modern scientific developments, induce a sense of deep interest, in which emotions of pity and sympathy are overwhelmed in the predominant atmosphere of thankfulness and hope. But it is not till a visitor has been privileged to enter Matron’s office and to be shown, in the beautifully kept ledgers, the system of organisation, that a true understanding can be reached of how it is that the work of this great hospital seems to run so smoothly, and with none of the restlessness and bustle which are associated with undertakings on a large scale. Miss Edith Holden has been Matron of the Third London General Hospital since August, 1914. One of the biggest military hospitals in the country, it contains over 2000 beds, of which 550 are for officers. It is certainly the largest collection of beds controlled by one matron, for in other of the larger military hospitals the patients are in different buildings, each containing several hundred beds, and having its own matron, though all under one commanding officer. The original building was the Royal Victoria Patriotic School for Soldiers’ Orphans, but as the hospital has increased a town of wooden huts has sprung up around the central stone edifice. Miss Holden had had considerable hospital experience in peace time, having been matron at the Richmond Hospital, Dublin, and assistant matron at Chelsea Infirmary. To her skill and power of organisation much of the success of the hospital is due. She presides over a staff of women numbering 520, which includes fully trained nurses, V.A.D. probationers, women orderlies, clerks, cooks, and scrubbers; and if she had no other duties, the control of this department alone would be a fair day’s work. The standard of nursing expected at the base hospitals in England is considerably higher than abroad, where the patient often feels he is merely resting on his way home. “Bed-sores are not always avoidable abroad,” writes a well-known Army doctor, “but they must never occur in a hospital in England.” The shortage of trained nurses makes the maintenance of this high standard no easy matter. “We have only two-fifths of the number of trained nurses laid down in the establishment as authorised by the War Office Schedule before the war,” Miss Holden stated recently, and even this nucleus is liable to be drawn upon for foreign service. This involves considerable strain on the Matron and her assistants.