Nursing Becomes the Noblest Profession

The hospital service of the London County Council is considered the largest in all Britain: it comprises 68,000 beds, and it stands in continual need of a growing number of nurses, servants, and workers.

Mr. George Isaacs, Britain's Minister of Labor, opened, for the recruitment of nurses, an exhibition held in the Council's hall. Among the things he said was that the women of today, who have been released from their work in the factories, the offices, and the various war departments, and who did their work to the full in the service of the homeland — these women are now seeking peaceful work with noble aims.

Nursing has from ancient times been an honored profession, counted among the noblest and most humane of occupations for the service it renders to the sick and the helpless.

This exhibition is a fine opportunity to show gifted women that nursing in Britain is also an attractive calling, and that its conditions are improving and advancing with steady steps. Cheerful young nurses stood ready to answer the visitors' questions in all the sections, among them a section displaying all the various surgical instruments, the operating rooms, the breathing apparatus that gives oxygen to infants, other devices that give off vapor, the iron lung, and more...

There was a model representing a nurse's room, with its comfortable bed, its chair, and its bookshelves; there was another room for keeping the staff's valuables; and there were a number of photographs showing the nurse's life during her training days, from her entry into the hospital until she passes the final examination. They also show the nurse during her training in the work of a particular specialty, such as the treatment of rheumatism, the nursing of children, and scientific nursing. In one of the pictures you see the nurse in her leisure hours, in cheerful scenes with books, flowers, and comfortable seats, and how the nurses are encouraged to take exercise and enjoy means of recreation.

It appears plainly in this exhibition what perfected and comprehensive facilities of health the London County Council hospital comprises, and parents can now assure themselves that nursing is a calling to which they may be proud to see their daughters belong.

There are films showing the nurse's life in her student days, the care of those afflicted in their minds, the nursing of consumptives, and several other kinds of nursing; and there are several photographs showing that still other specialized branches of nursing stand ready to welcome the alert and clever student.