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19
with such charitable agencies as may exist in the locality, so that they may
receive suitable support, and when such aid is forthcoming she will see that
they, and not others, enjoy it.
The nurses are, indeed, very important persons in this campaign, and, as
a medical man declared not long since " they have shown that the medical
profession, which is supposed to know at all times how much there is of every
sort of sickness, and where it is located, has, in fact, very imperfect knowledge.
The nurses are constantly discovering tuberculosis where its presence was not
only unknown, but unsuspected. They have attacked the prevalent ignorance,
and, after four years, they say that in their districts there is no longer any
class which is ignorant of the infectious nature of tuberculosis."
A tuberculosis dispensary nurse requires more than an ordinary
nurse to be a person possessing superior education, more tact and
powor of discriminating the idiosyncrasies of people, especially poor people
—for it is with these she will most often come into contact—good
temper, and unmindful of slights and insults. As a lady put it, " The modern
instruction nurse is as different from the old-fashioned nurse as any modern
scientific instrument differs from the rude one of antiquity. In olden times
goodness and sympathy were considered the essentials. To-day science
and efficiency, added to goodness, must constitute the woman and the nurse.
Hers is the leading opportunity of giving instruction and education. Few
realise the importance of her mission. In this, her newest philanthropy, she
spreads the enormous truths of modern hygiene, and becomes at once its
advance agent." She is the right hand of the Medical Officer of Health in
the campaign against tuberculosis, for although medical men may prescribe
and direct methods of living, it is she who, after all, instructs the afflicted in
their own homes as to the private and public protective measures that are to
be adopted. She also does more; for by her cheerfulness she raises hope of
a cure in the breasts of those who may have abandoned all hope ; and thereby
she raises the latent energy and resisting power of the patient, thus supplying
the one thing needful to produce a satisfactory termination of the disease.
The nurses are also the agents of the Medical Officer of Health to
inquire into the probable origin of the disease; and hence it is doubly requisite
that they shall possess a good education as well as more than ordinary
intelligence. You will recollect that Art. XII. of the Order of the Local
Government Board, dated 19th December, 1912, requires that "Upon the
receipt of a notification under these regulations, the Medical Officer of Health,
or an officer of the local authority acting under the instructions of the Medical
Officer of Health, SHALL make such inquiries and take such steps as are
necessary or desirable for investigating the source of infection ; for preventing