Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/322

306 3o6 A Short History of Nursing and every foreign country had its groups of medi- cal and nursing missionaries at work in India by the end of the last century. A national plan of great magnitude for bringing medical and nursing relief to the women of India (for the seclusion in which they were kept made them the greatest sufferers) was set in motion in 1885 by Lady Dufferin, wife of the Viceroy in that year. Its objects were to provide medical tuition for women ; to train them as nurses, midwives, and hospital assistants; to provide medical relief under the direc- tion of women, and to supply nurses and midwives for hospital wards and for private cases. This organization was developed widely by a system of co-operation with local governments, under which it received local funds as well as grants from the central government. It built and maintained many excellent hospitals and training schools. One of the most important of these is the Cama hospital, under the Bombay branch of the fund. Systematic training in nursing and midwifery was begun there in 1886. English nurses in India have had careers of high adventure in every line of nursing, and remarkable narratives of pioneer work may be read in current journals and nursing reports, to which we may only refer. In 1907 an association of Nursing