US Army School of Nursing - Taps Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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a©.a Letterman Genehai, Hospital. San Frantisco, California Supervisors 1. Evelyn Wood 4. Bina Moseley 2. Perlc DuBois 5. Nellie Godbolt 3. Louise Cadwalader 6. Nina Haugen 1921.- twcittv-nine

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Letterman General Hospital, San Francisco, California Surgical Staff, Lieut.-Col. John W. Manner 5. Major Edgar H. Brown 6. Captain Louie Felger 7. Captain Leonard W. Weaver 8. Faculty Major Royal Reynolds Lieut.-Col. Julien R. Bernheam Major Edward G. Huber Captain Kenneth G. Kincaid 1921. twenty-eight

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A6.a Jligtorp of tf)E rmp cftool of J ursiing URIXG the first year of the war the need for army nurses in America became more and more acute. Tn 1918 it reached a crisis. The Army Nurse Corps had 235 Rea;ular Army Nurses and 165 Reserves as its pre-war strength, but one nurse was needed for every hundred men : that is, for every ten or more men who would require hospital care after the big drives began, and nifire nurses were in urgent demand. In the emergency the country turned to precedent. What had England done? In Augu.st, 1914, she had had only 350 nurses in her army and navy together, and all the available graduate nurses could not fill the sudden demand. Yet she had cared for nearly half a million wounded during the first year of the war. How had she solved the problem? Her solution had been the .Aid. In all the army hospitals the untrained women, from the Duchess to the seamstress, were serving under the trained Sisters, doing the work and proud of doing it well. America said, Let us have Aids ! Yet already there were those in England who were dissatisfied with the system there. It was essentially on an emergency basis. It held nothing for the future, either for the Aid herself or for the reconstruction work when peace should come. The Aid was always an Aid ; and, though she won the title of Red Cross Nurse after a certain term of service, her training was never equivalent to a course in an established school of nursing. It was putting the best of the country into the ranks, with no opportunity for advancement. If America accepted the Engli.sh scheme, she accepted one already recognized to be short-sighted. All this question arose earlv in 1918. In Eebruary the employment of Aids had been decided on. On February 18th IMiss Goodrich entered on her duties as Chief Inspecting Nurse in the office of the Surgeon-General. The idea of an Army School was not a wholly new one. Someone must have thought of it in mid- ' ictorian days, for Florence Nightingale referred to it then as infeasible. In 1917 it had been suggested that the American . rmy might take half-trained students from civilian hos])itals and give them a year of experi- ence in militarv nursing. The plan, however, had been abandoned. When Miss Cioodrich took her oath of office the scheme for procuring Aids was so well under wav that one would have thought nothing could postpone it. Yet postponed it was. In the following months there were many who cooperated with Miss Goodrich in framing the Army School ; she foresaw, to quote her words, that the nursing profession would be called on to contribute in fullest measure to the 1921. thirtx