Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/372

356 356 A Short History of Nursing still be traced in the long hours of hospital duty, in the austere and cloister-like atmosphere of some nurses homes, in the severely plain dress of the nurse (without frills or jewelry or other vanities) in the plainly dressed hair and the cap or veil which is a perpetual reminder of St. Paul's strange injunc- tion that women must cover their heads or be shorn. Other interesting marks of the religious influ- ence are the constant use of the cross in some form for medals and insignia, the custom of, morning prayers, the title of "Sister" still used in English hospitals, and the persistent belief among some I people that nursing, instead of being a normal happy life full of wholesome human activity and interest, is still in some sense a martyrdom or an appropriate refuge for the disappointed and be- reaved. While too much emphasis cannot be put on moral character as an essential in nurs- ing, the older idea of the nurse as a saint and the insistence on goodness as her only important qualification, has served often to excuse low stand- ards of fitness and to justify slip-shod methods of training. Because of the peculiar nature of the nurse's work which brings her into rather unconventional relations with men, the church in the older days