Writings by Susan Dickinson


close-up | previous page | next page | note | essay index | search | main index



H bMS Am 1118.95, Box 9


5

The monthly nurses were from respectable
American families, mostly spinsters although
who never had received the slightest
intelligent[?] training or been guilty of wide experience.
Their leisure and need of money seemed
their diploma for service. The babies
in their sparse neighborhoods they had
ushered into this bale perhaps they had - nursed a long
summer of typhoid fever in their homes perhaps
or rather sat by, with their knitting
while the germs ran their race with a
constitution - this was the sum of their
tuition. In the main they all seem
to me as persons come to oblige, claiming
a little more than equality - anxious
to secure first their own good sleep and
regular[?] meals - meeting on Sundays -
constant reading of books and papers - free
discussion of parish, village, and
neighbors regardless of the nerves or
safety of the patient. Rather grudgingly
offering the Doctor's prescriptions, forcibly
recommending some original compound concoction



close-up | previous page | next page | note | essay index | search | main index




Writings by Susan Dickinson Main Page
Image reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Not to be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.
Transcription and commentary copyright 1998 by Martha Nell Smith,
Laura Elyn Lauth, and Lara Vetter, all rights reserved
Maintained by Rebecca Mooney  <rnmooney@umd.edu>
Last updated on January 24, 2008

Dickinson Electronic Archives