VALUE OF A NURSE'S FINGER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 249, 9 February 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

VALUE OF A NURSE'S FINGER.

FIANCE WOULD STILL WED HER IF ONLY A STUMP LEFT.

What is the value of the index finger to a nurse aged 20? Tins was a question for decision at the Clerkenwell Court, London, recently. Miss May Knight, of Southampton, asked for an award i nder the Workmen's Compensation Act from tlie London Fever Hospital. While.disinfecting some hairpins 'belonging to a patient she pricked her finger, erysipelas ensued in it, and she lost the use of if. This was on September 30, 1910. In May a doctor told her she would be all right if .she had a portion of the finger removed.

Counsel submit-ed that a girl of marriageable age would be most unwise if she submitted to the operation, but Miss Knight admitted that her fiance had not refused to many her if she had tho finger amputated. Ir he came back from the war, having had his rightliand shot off, would you refuse to marry him?—Of couse not. Judge Roberts said he could not founder what effect an amputation would have from a'purely aesthetic point of view. The. medical assessor thought that tho loss of the two joints would aflcct the applicant's chance of employment in private practice to a certain oxtent— in cases where patients were particularly fidgety aaid objected to a nurse who had lost a portion of one finger—but for hospital work it would not affect her. Ho held that at present she was totally incapicitattd, and was entitled to compensation at the rate of 14s 7d per week from the timo she left the hospital ;n July.