Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/169

153 Nursing in America i53 went through the motions of washing the bed linen without soap; the "nurses" were prisoners arrested for drunkenness, immoraHty, or other mis- demeanour, who slept in the bath-rooms on straw beds laid on the floor, terrorized the helpless sick, took fees, and were not to be trusted with medi- cines, or with food brought in by visitors. The women first sent a messenger. Dr. Gill Wylie, to Miss Nightingale to obtain her advice, and to observe English nursing. They then made a public appeal for funds (1872), stating their plans and outlining the great need of what they hoped to do. On the first of May, 1873, the training school was opened under the direction of Sister Helen of All Saints, who, as we have seen, was in Baltimore in the Community House when she read the appeal. Sister Helen had had training in University College hospital, London, and extensive later ex- perience in English workhouse infirmaries, chol- era epidemics and in the Franco-Prussian war. After organizing the Bellevue school, she was called to the Somerset hospital in South Africa, where she built up a nursing staff (1876-81). She then went to the front during the Boer war. In 1886 Sister Helen returned to England and died in the All Saints' Home in 1896. She was then