NURSING THROUGH THE WARS

 

Forence Nightingale, “Lady with the lamp”, at Barrack Hospital at Scutari (Ulskudar) in 1854 during the Crimean War.  Portrait published in 1891 by Cassell & Co. from a painting by Henrietta Rae.

Florence Nightingale “came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organized care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople.  She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of the “Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.”

Clara Barton, Clarissa Harlowe Barton, “was an American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she did not attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care.  Barton is noteworthy for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy at a time before women had the right to vote.  She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973.”

It is not widely known, but Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary) served as a nurse during the Civil War . . .

. . . as did poet, Walt Whitman!  Whitman "volunteered as a nurse in the army hospitals during the Civil War. He was inspired to do so after seeing the wounded soldiers in the hospital where his brother was treated. He learned basic medical skills and cared for thousands of sick and injured men. He also listened to their stories and wrote letters for them. He wrote a collection of poems called Drum-Taps based on his war experiences.”

Helen Fairchild “was an American nurse who served as part of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, and who became known for her wartime letters to her family in the U.S., which vividly depicted the realities of combat nursing during World War I. She died of post-operative complications after surgery for a gastric ulcer while on duty with British base hospital #10/#16 on the Western Front.”  She wasn’t quite 33 years old.

WW1 Nurse Agnes Glyn taken by ‘Bassano Limited’, Photographers with studios at No. 25, Old Bond Street.

McCall’s magazine 1915

McCall’s 1918

The Pine Cone Performers, of which I was a member when we lived in Groveland, had our share of nurses in various plays.  Here are Nurse Wendy March & Dr. Phil Good, heroine & hero in “Dogsbreath Devereaux, The Dastardly Doctor” or ‘Nurses!  Foiled Again.’

Ivy Dripp was a nurse without a clue in “Dogsbreath—“ J

And here are the evil villains Nurse Hilda Hatchet & Dr. Devereaux himself.  I played the part of their victim – Lotta Cash – whom Dr. Devereaux planned to marry so he could inherit all her money, see to her demise, then marry Nurse Hatchet.  What a fine upstanding peach of a fellow. L  Fortunately nurse Wendy March and Dr. Phil Good put an end to Dogsbreath’s evil plan. 

And here, with a similar sounding name – what a coincidence?  ;) – is Nurse Ratched  from 1975’s “One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest”.  

This is Nurse Kelly (Kellye Nakahara) from the TV show, M*A*S*H.  I include her because years ago I had a chance to talk with her on the phone about something and it was fun and kind of exciting, having been watching her on the show for years.

Of course, thinking of M*A*S*H, one can’t leave out Nurse Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan seen here with Dr. Frank Burns.

One of several pranks played on Margaret & Frank

:->

La Nightingail