WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 180, 8 January 1915, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

AIUSTOCK'-VTIC NURSES' TEARS. IJOKKOKS OF THE TRENCHES. I (Sydney Sun.) London, November 3. Hallow-een!. Let ns look in the mirror. A great newspaper makes an appeal for the British Bed Cross Society. Over half a million pounds is subscribed in a fortnight. The great newspaper asks for fifty motor ambulances. Fiftyone are given in a fortnight. Tile lted Cross Association lias abundant funds and ample motor ambulances. It can enlist the services of the greatest physicians, tlie greatest surgeons, the greatest specialists in the United Kingdom. It can establish itself within reasonable distance of the fighting line! The British Army Medical Corps is a complete and efficient organisation. It | was prepared at all points when the | war began, It was equipped to tend an ! Expeditionary Force of '250,000 men. It went about its job in a workmanlike manner. Whilst there were only 250,000 men fighting at the front, it was able to give prompt aid to all who were wounded or hurt, but there are more than 250,000 men wearing British uniforms in France and the percentage of casualties is higher than that in any previous war. The Army Medical Corps fitted itself fn r a war. It will nof even now regard it as The War.

Nurses were wanted by the hundred, nay, thousand. Visions of ministering angels induced hundreds of women of gentle birth to volunteer for service with tlie ambulances, the field hospitals, the base hospitals, and the convalescent homes. Their hearts went out to the gallant officers and the brave soldiers who were battling for the hearths and homes so dear to all of us. They read little scraps of Florence Nightingale's life, tliey saw pictures of pretty women in becoming uniforms, they took fleeting lessons in first aid, and they used their aristocratic connections to secure their appointment to Red Cross Nursing Corps. They crossed the Channel to cheat Death of thousands of lusty lives. A country doctor wtih a large and growing practice read in the morning papers of the fearful mortality caused by the. C.erman artillery and the German policy of backing their way to England. His daily round became distasteful; be felt that be must be doing something, however little, to assist his country. Being a good physician and a more than passable surgeon, be decided that bis services would be of use to the Army. So lie engaged a locum tenens and b e went up to London, and lie offered himself to the War Office, and the War Office advised him to return to liia rural practice.

TERRIM.E TRF.XCIIES. the last fortnight the Allies have been sustaining about 4000 casualties daily. The trenches, half-filled with water, have been literally running with blood. The shrapnel, bullets and the bursting shells of the enemy have converted thousands of <:My soldiers into human pin-cushions.- One man bad no less thi-i sixty-five distinct fragments probed and pulled out of him. Under continuous fire, when it has been im['ONMble to remove the wounded, the trendies have become veritable .shambles. Down along the Aisne, where the men have been cooped up in them for the best part of two months, they have become an abomination. Dysentery has been rife in some of them for three weeks

In towns in Franco far removed from tl t.'.eatrc of war dozens ol motor am-bVaii-es are dashing about having as occupants superldv dressed and delieate- • scented women. In the large fashiona.bie and expensive hotels in these towns are dozens of British medical men bored to death with their own senseless chatter of shop, and pining for some Biseful professional work. In Bordeaux, which is the French temporary seat of Government, similar cars, similar jewelled occupants, similar spacious hotels, and similar nored doctors are to bo seen, only they are French, t'p near the \ ser the Army Medical Corps cannot cope with the wounded. A hundred, two humfred miles away, are reinforcements which would save the lives of hundreds of plucky fellows. The Army Medical Corps is an army institution. It is subject to the rigid restrictions of army organisation. It lias its own allotted task, and it ignore!-, lue presence of merely volunteers. There is only one way to enter the Army Medical Corps, and that is oil the lowest run# of the ladder. If Sir Frederick Treves were to proffer his skill to tins nation through the Army Medical Corps, his assistance would not be accepted unless he enlisted in the humble of second lieutenant, a grade in which he would be under the command of every eapia:n, major or colonel in the Army Service Corps—that is, under the control of men who bear the same professional relation to him as the Lilliputians did to the Brobdingna.gians. The leaders of the profession -will not submit themselves to this humiliation. All the British wounded are brought back to Kngland. In Calais the hospital accommodation was exhausted many oays ago, and the wounded still arrive. ■lmiior medico*—soiim of (hem have not even completed their five years' c'omvi I —- are performing operations which the grouted surgeons wouid not care to undertake The juniors do not wish to carve their way to knowledge upon the hapless wounded soldiers: but somebody has to do the work, and there is nobody else. If they don't nu:a trv at it, tin- battered soldier- mav nevi.di under their eyes. ATNSTnCHATIC XI.'RSEs In Paris there are five magnificent splendidly fitted hospitals absolutely empty. At the towns, which are nameless, there are dozens of motor ambulances and doctors kicking their lieels J in indignant remonstrance, while at Cal-

aia and other places near to tlio coast there is overcrowding and disastrous delays in the treatment of the wounded., In the hospital there are three nurses looking after a hundred bad cases. Any of these men would, in normal times, have a day nurse and a night nurse. There are a thousand and one things that ought to be done to alleviate the agonising pain which racks their fevered hodies. But the only soothing and the inly nursing which they receive is that which three big-hearted, capable women can give to a hundred men in such circumstances. Coming from Ifiuiy trendies, almost ipulped by heavy artillery lire, these soldiers were fearfully repellent to the bluc-bloodcd volunteer nurses who went away from May fair. Their noble stomachs turned when they were confronted with sucli distorted and diseased humanity. Their gentle lingers refused to perform the functions required of them. They softly and quietly tip-toed into the background, after discharging their souls of much tearful sympathy, and left the "dirty work'' to the stalwart professional nurse, who shrinks and blanches at nothing. One Sairy Gamp in a war hospital is worth a hundred Belgravian volunteers. The pictures which have llitted across the mirror have been stark and brutal aiul depressing, but it is well tliat Auswho have given liberally to the lied" Cross Funds, ami who believe that their sons will enjoy the best attea. tion that science can olTer, should know tnj conditions which exist in France todaV.

AX AI'PRECIATTD GIFT.Oho of tlie :-;ost notable of Hie gift's by the women of New South Wales to the Australian Expeditionary l'orces tlio throe travelling kitchens, handed over by the New South Wales Women's liberal League, Referring to these unique gifts, 'Colonel (.'ox said it would be impossible for the women to have given anything more useful or more likely to be thoroughly appreciated. The Women's Liberal League set out a month or two ago to secure funds for the purchase of one of these kitchens. Three have already been .presented, and there is more money in hand still. It is no'./ hoped to present two more. Colon. 1 Cox's regiment has one, Colonel Burnagc's one, and Colonel Arnott's one. These are the first of the kind to be made in Australia. Thej can cook •2031b of roast meat, 3001b of vegetables and boil 30 gallons of soup at a time. Thirty gallons of water can be boiled every 25 minutes, and 300 men can be supplied with full meals every hour. Two horses will draw the kitchen with case, and they are fitted with a system of steam pipes so arranged as to obviate over-cooking.