File:A war nurse's diary - sketches from a Belgian field hospital (1918) (14802806193).jpg

Identifier: 01110260R.nlm.nih.gov
Title: A war nurse's diary : sketches from a Belgian field hospital
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: World War I Nurse, author
Subjects: World War I Nurse Nurses Field Hospitals World War I
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Contributing Library: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons, U.S. National Library of Medicine

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chen stove from 6.00 a. m. to 11.00 P. M., serv-ing meals to two hundred people for practically noremuneration. The next few pages are mostly about people, theyare histories of heroes we nursed. For two monthsduring that winter my friend and I were in chargeof a small ward. We were only comfortably busy,as things were slack during the winter owing to themud. Amongst the patients were four interestingcases who still write to us. The first was Joseph. He was a dear boy, andstayed with us so long that we got to know him well.At Hoogestadt we nursed the Premier Division ofthe Belgian Army, and the Premier Guides were abody of cavalry in that Division. The officersformed the Royal Horse Guards stationed in peacetimes outside the Royal Palace at Brussels. Wewere stationed at the section where the PremierGuides fought and lived when out of the trenches.Joseph belonged to them. He came to us with alarge wound in his leg. It pierced right throughthe calf, tearing the muscles from the shin-bone
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1 HOOGESTADT 89 nearly all the way from the knee to the ankle. Thedoctors fixed it up, but very soon it went gangren-ous. The surgeon said the only way to be sure ofthe mischief not spreading was to cut off his leg.I begged him to allow me to syringe it every halfhour and meanwhile I removed him outside into thewinter sunshine, fixing his leg up so that the airplayed all around the wound, and left it absolutelyexposed all day long. It did well, and the gan-grene came off in one big slough, leaving fresh, redflesh underneath. He was outside at one meal hour, and I was busyin the ward behind him, when some one shouted outSister, quick! Joseph is bleeding to death! Iseized a tourniquet from a cupboard and rushedaround, fixing it on. The surgeon who was calledsaid there was now really nothing to be done but totake that leg off, as the main artery had sloughedthrough and the foot would get no circulation.Again I coaxed him to wait for a while and see ifthe foot really looked that way. We w

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