Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/955

 Austria is also in a very backward state, in spite of the fame of the Vienna cliniques. The Red Cross Society provides a certain amount of trained nursing, and next to it the best-organized work is done by religious orders; but the nursing in the hospitals appears to be still in a neglected state. The Brothers of Mercy have charge of some of the men’s hospitals, and also carry on a remarkable system of district nursing.

In Holland and the Scandinavian countries the organization is more modern and fairly adequate.

For full details on the large subject of the duties and qualifications of nurses the reader is referred to the numerous text-books and other technical authorities. Only a few general observations can be made here. Many candidates approach the calling with a very imperfect appreciation of its exacting character. The work is not easy

or to be taken up lightly. It demands physical strength, sound health, scrupulous cleanliness, good temper, self-control, intelligence and a strong sense of duty. It embraces many duties—some of them menial and disagreeable—besides the purely medical and surgical functions. This is especially the case with district nursing, which is the highest and most exacting branch of the profession, because it imposes the greatest responsibility with the fewest resources and demands the most varied qualifications, while affording none of the attractions incidental to hospital work or private nursing among the rich. It is comparatively easy to fulfil routine duties, when every means is at hand and the standing conditions are the most favourable possible; when ventilation, warmth, light and cleanliness are all provided of the best, and when assistance can be summoned in a moment. To be thrown on your own resources and make the best of adverse conditions is an entirely different matter; it requires a thorough knowledge not of routine, but of principles. It is impossible, therefore, for nurses to be over-educated in the fullest sense of the word; but it is possible for them to be inappropriately educated, and perhaps that is sometimes the case now. Probably nursing has been elaborated to the inevitable point of specialization, and a somewhat different preparation is needed for different branches of the art.

Allusion has been made above to the subject of male nursing. It hardly finds a place in the British civil system, and was condemned for hospitals in Germany, where it is at its best, by so eminent an authority as Professor Virchow. In the South African War of 1899–1902 it was even suggested that female nurses should replace orderlies at the front. The only valid reason for preferring women to attend men rather than members of their own sex is the difficulty of obtaining a supply of equally well qualified and satisfactory male nurses. But this difficulty need not be permanent, and the assumption is much to be deprecated. It is, indeed, most desirable that men should be nursed by men. The advantages are many and real. For one thing women do not possess the physical strength which is often required. They cannot lift a heavy man, and ought not to be asked to do it. Then it is excessively irksome to a sensitive man to be attended by women for various necessary offices. In order to avoid it he will endeavour to do without assistance, and seriously prejudice his chances of recovery.

 NUSHKI, a town and district of Baluchistan. The town lies 70 m. south-west of Quetta, and is situated in a plain at the base of the Quetta plateau, 2900 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1901) 644. From this point the flat Baluchistan desert stretches away northwards and westwards to the Helmund river. The administration of the Nushki district was taken over from the khan of Kalat by the Indian government in 1896, and was leased from him on a perpetual quit rent in 1899. In 1902 a railway of 91 m. was sanctioned from Quetta to Nushki, which was completed in 1905. This railway makes Nushki the starting-point of the caravan route to Seistan. From the strategic point of view a force operating from Nushki would flank any advance from the north on Kandahar, and would also guard the south-west approach to the fortress of Quetta.

 NUSKU, the name of the light and fire-god in Babylonia and Assyria, who is hardly to be distinguished, from a certain time on, from a god Girru—formerly read Gibil. Nusku-Girru is the symbol of the heavenly as well as of the terrestrial fire. As the former he is the son of Anu, the god of heaven, but he is likewise associated with Bel of Nippur as the god of the earth and regarded as his first-born son. A centre of his cult in Assyria was in Harran, where, because of the predominating character of the moon-cult, he is viewed as the son of the moon-god (q.v.). Nusku-Girru is by the side of Ea, the god of water, the great purifier. It is he, therefore, who is called upon to cleanse the sick and suffering from disease, which, superinduced by the demons, was looked upon as a species of impurity affecting the body.

The fire-god is also viewed as the patron of the arts and the god of civilization in general, because of the natural association of all human progress with the discovery and use of fire. As among other nations, the fire-god was in the third instance looked upon as the protector of the family. He becomes the mediator between humanity and the gods, since it is through the fire on the altar that the offering is brought into the presence of the gods.

While temples and sanctuaries to Nusku-Girru are found in Babylonia and Assyria, he is worshipped more in symbolical form than the other gods. For the very reason that his presence is common and universal he is not localized to the same extent as his fellow-deities, and, while always enumerated in a list of the great gods, his place in the systematized pantheon is more or less vague. The conceptions connected with Nusku are of distinctly popular origin, as is shown by his prominence in incantations, which represent the popular element in the cult, and it is significant that in the astro-theological system of the Babylonian priests Nusku-Girru is not assigned to any particular place in the heavens.

 NUSRETABAD, the capital of Persian Seistan, so called after Nusret el Mulk, a former deputy governor of Seistan; when built, c. 1870, it was first called Nasirabad in honour of Nasr-uddin Shah; other names, used locally, are Shahr (town) i Seistan, Shahr i Nassiriyeh, or simply Shahr, the town. It is the residence of British and Russian consuls, and has post and telegraph offices.

 NUT (O. Eng. knutu, cf. Dutch moot, Ger. Nuss; allied with Gael. cno; it is not of the same form as Lat. nux), a term applied to that class of fruit which consists generally of a single kernel enclosed in a hard shell. Botanically speaking, nuts are one-celled fruits with hardened pericarps, sometimes more or less enveloped in a cupule or cup, formed by the aggregation of the bracts as in the hazel and the acorn. In commerce, however, the term has a wider application and embraces many fruits having hard woody indehiscent shells or coverings without reference to their enclosed seeds or kernels, besides leguminous pods, and even tuberous roots. A great number of nuts enter into commerce for various purposes, principally as articles of food or sources of oil, and for several ornamental and useful purposes. For the most part the edible nuts are very rich in oil, with only a small percentage of the other carbohydrates, starch, sugar, &c., and they also contain a large proportion of nitrogenous constituents. Thus possessing rich nutrient principles in a highly concentrated form, nuts are by themselves rather difficult of digestion, and the liability of many of them to become rancid is also a source of danger and a hindrance to their free use. Oleaginous nuts used for food are likewise employed more or less as sources of oil, but on the other hand there are many oil-nuts of commercial importance not embraced in the list of edible nuts.

On the following page is set out an alphabetical enumeration of the more important nuts, and of products passing under that name, used either as articles of food or as sources of oil. 