I am not exaggerating in the least if I say that the most important mark of social progress, and the worthiest of attention, is the general level of health a nation enjoys. To the degree that the health level of any nation is high, to that degree is the nation advanced.
The diseases that spread among nations, and everything connected with them in the way of treatment, prevention, and scientific guidance, can be eliminated only by effective agents — the agents that science has placed in the service of humanity, entrusting to the nurse the task of carrying out the greater part of the work... The task of nursing is a very arduous one, but woman, with her strength of will and her endurance for sustained work, has been able to master these hardships, because she has found, in the doing of her work, a great consolation in easing humanity's pains and misery. Advanced governments, the proprietors of hospitals, scientists, and physicians have felt what
noble work the nurse performs in the field of humanity; they have respected her, valued her mission at its true worth, and made her the essential agent in the defense of health in general and in the fight against epidemics of every kind.
The profession of nursing requires two important elements: scientific study and psychological study... The nursing colleges admit among their students only those who hold the secondary certificate. There the student spends three years in scientific instruction, covering many of the subjects studied by the students of medicine themselves, in addition to the practical lessons, the special examinations, and the working methods she acquires in the hospital where she studies.
And may I draw attention to this girl on whom the world smiles, because she has worn away as yet only a few of its years? Do you see her, sweeping along in white garments that are a symbol of
purity and love? She keeps watch through the long nights at the sick man's side, no eyelid of hers closing; she gives him his medicine, helps him to bear his pains, and comforts him, to restore to his soul the hope of life — all this while her sweet smile never leaves her lips, because she reads in the depths of this patient laid out before her that he needs the contented smile and the sweet consolation more than he needs treatment and medicine... May I draw the attention of public opinion to the fact that the profession of nursing is an honorable, lofty, and secure profession, whose hardships and burdens can be borne only by one whose soul is adorned with strength, faith, and love. May Lebanese public opinion know that the nurse is an effective member of the medical body, walking side by side with the physician: at his side she strives, helps, and works to know the disease and relieve it in the hospital; in the laboratories she searches with the physician for the elements and the germs, and works to understand how they are transmitted and how they spread, and then the ways of guarding against them.
And in the maternity homes she is the best of all at showing tenderness to the child and taking him in charge with care and rearing.
If we had a sufficient number of registered nurses, we would fit out traveling hospitals to tour the remote regions of Lebanon, where there is no trace of medicine or medical care, teaching the people the ways of preventing diseases and epidemics, distributing medicines among them, and vaccinating them against these diseases.
If we had a sufficient number of nurses, the number of deaths in the country would fall; the government could open the doors of the prisons before them, to visit the prisoners and supervise their state of health; and the government would oblige every factory and workshop to contract with a nurse or
