Three Nurses in a Symposium at The Woman's Voice

Miss Lily Nahhas says:

What femininity is more compelling in its proof than a woman bending over the sick, comforting him in his pains?

And Miss Hasiba Lutfallah declares:

The health-consciousness that flings the nurse into the very mire of germs is the first foundation of her staying sound and strong!

And Miss Nuha Hitti announces:

No quality so honors a girl's name, or so enriches her moral worth, as her zeal for man's safety and happiness!

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Whoever came to the editorial office of The Woman's Voice that day found his eyes dazzled by gleaming white, and his nostrils invaded — or he fancied he could smell — soap, or spirits. And no wonder: the "angels of mercy" had alighted upon the management to talk among themselves of some of the things that hinder the carrying out of their precious mission among the rest of mankind. And in this they are forbearing, showing something after the manner of the gods' famed forgiveness toward needy, wretched man — even should he deny their merit and belittle their nobility and their sacrifice!!!

Among our society's shortcomings toward nursing as women's profession number one is this: that we still confuse, openly or in our hearts, the lofty mission of nursing, with all the science and art it enfolds, with the ordinary "service" that rises no higher than the work of house servants — and this at a time when those same servants have become rulers and commanders! On the one hand shortsightedness, or shrinking from honorable manual activity; or our distaste for the love of order and rules, and hence our failure to be conscious of our duty toward others... all these and more make up social and moral obstacles which any girl wishing to enter this corps must surmount and subdue.

For without an ample, organized body of nurses no advanced society can stand, in any country whatever. Thanks to modern scientific prevention we enjoy our health as sound individuals in a sound environment. And thanks to the newest treatments we hasten, in sickness, to the arms of medicine — and no doubt our faith at such a time comes near our faith in our Creator. And then, who guarantees us someone to fight and strive at our side, and give us to drink the means of health, dose by dose, by the newest and safest method? We fasten our trust upon them and place in their hands our lives — the most precious thing we own?!

How are we to imagine a collision, or a catastrophe of fire, or a spreading epidemic, without swift and effective first aid, modern treatment, skill and competence? How are we to imagine homes without mothers trained in sterilizing and disinfecting, informed about nourishing foods, familiar with the ailments of childhood and steady in humoring old age? And how imagine schools that give no weight to sanitary requirements in their buildings and their programs — that care nothing for physical exercise and do not watch over their students' habits, checking their ailments in the cradle? Or an elegant city, or a beautiful countryside, over whose health no organized, conscious body keeps watch?

If the need for a general knowledge of nursing and "first aid" is among the requisites of the housewife, the teacher, the air hostess, the social worker, the scout leader... then how far must the need reach for the expert specialist, who matches the doctor in capability and undertakes to carry out his directions with knowledge and discernment?! And then — can it be right that hospitals should have unlicensed nurses taking the reins of patients' lives in the doctor's absence?!

We say: it is poverty... and leave it at that. But is there in our society, and in the images, opinions, and ideas it enfolds, anything to draw the rising generation of girls and make them love to take up nursing as an honorable, free profession? The white houris stir in their chairs, the fragrance of good soap and disinfectant spirits wafts up anew, and they bring us the shining truth from Europe and America, telling us what they touched and witnessed there.

Western society looks upon this profession with the highest degrees of esteem, counting it a lofty national service, and works to encourage it by every method of publicity, in name and in deed. So do not wonder to read a placard in the train, for instance, entitling the nurse to travel at half the fare of the other passengers; or a notice in a club welcoming her at a substantial reduction! And further still: the profession has organized for itself, with the help and guidance of its government, a "syndicate" that watches over its apparatus in the body of the nation as a whole; it defends its rights and imposes its rules on all hospitals without exception, whether as to wages or as to hours of work, thereby securing it time enough to recover its strength and refresh its spirit.

And let it not slip our minds that the nurse reconciles two divergent social conditions. She is the one who has sworn the oath of aid to every needy person at every hour. And she is also the natural creature, the complete human being, who has the right to attend to herself like any other woman. She is no nun and no ascetic, no soldier, and no attendant upon humanity's slaughters emptied of all personal feeling.

So if one day you hear the "saxophone" playing from afar, and the fall of dancers' feet to its tunes — remember that among those feet may be the two feet of an "angel of mercy," treading the earth, as they are accustomed, without noise and without a sound...