Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/157

141 Florence Nightingale 141 A point that is important to nurses is that of the effect of Red Cross organization upon self- governing societies of nurses. In foreign countries it often made such organization more difficult, because it controlled numbers of training schools, and held nurses to a strict separatism and exclusive loyalty. While they remained in its service they could not join other societies, but were regarded as part and parcel of Red Cross equipment for war time. They could, of course, leave when they chose, but many opportunities of employment were then closed to them. While in one way the Red Cross organizations of European countries appeared to be democratic, in that they brought men and women of 11 1 .1. . . ., Aristocratic all classes together m activities for a tendency of common purpose, they were in reality ., 1 . ^ ^- • „ . Red Cross intensely aristocratic in all executive features, and became indeed the favourite hobby of queens and women of the nobility, as war was the great game of kings. When the levelling pro- cesses of the World War took place, however, the International Red Cross developed in new and very significant directions, to undertake a world- wide campaign for the conservation of health.