
Looking back to look ahead
“The nurses at the front
are working terribly hard, sleeping with helmets over their faces and enamel
basins on their stomachs, washing in the water they had in their hot-water bags
because water is so scarce, operating fourteen hours at a stretch, drinking
quantities of tea because there is no coffee and nothing else to drink, wearing
men’s socks under their stockings, trying to keep their feet warm in the frosty
operating rooms at night, and both seeing and doing such surgical work as they
never in their wildest days dreamed of, but all the time unafraid and
unconcerned with the whistling, banging shells exploding around them. Oh, they
are fine! Never tell me that women can’t do as much, stand
as much, and be as brave as men.”
WW1, France, American Army Chief Nurse’s letter – Finding Themselves: The Letters of
an American Army Chief Nurse in a British Hospital in France – Photo:
1918 American Nurses of Etretat Base Hospital, France in a parade. Archives & Special Collections,
Columbia University Health Sciences Library