I didn't think so,but the doctrine of inglorious ease was not the right one to preach up,so I tried to look shocked,failed signally,and consoled myself by giving him the fat pincushion he had admired as the "cutest little machine agoin."Then they fell into line in front of the house,looking rather wan and feeble,some of them,but trying to step out smartly and march in good order,though half the knapsacks were carried by the guard,and several leaned on sticks instead of shouldering guns.All looked up and smiled,or waved heir hands and touched their caps,as they passed under our windows down the long street,and so away,some to their homes in this world,and some to that in the next;and,for the rest of the day,I felt like Rachel mourning for her children,when I saw the empty beds and missed the familiar faces.
You ask if nurses are obliged to witness amputations and such matters,as a part of their duty?I think not,unless they wish;for the patient is under the effects of ether,and needs no care but such as the surgeons can best give.Our work begins afterward,when the poor soul comes to himself,sick,faint,and wandering;full of strange pains and confused visions,of disagreeable sensations and sights.Then we must sooth and sustain,tend and watch;preaching and practicing patience,till sleep and time have restored courage and self-control.
I witnessed several operations;for the height of my ambition was to go to the front after a battle,and feeling that the sooner I inured myself to trying sights,the more useful I should be.Several of my mates shrunk from such things;for though the spirit was wholly willing,the flesh was inconveniently weak.One funereal lady came to try her powers as a nurse;but,a brief conversation eliciting the facts that she fainted at the sight of blood,was afraid to watch alone,couldn't possibly take care of delirious persons,was nervous about infections,and unable to bear much fatigue,she was mildly dismissed.I hope she found her sphere,but fancy a comfortable bandbox on a high shelf would best meet the requirements of her case.
Dr.Z.suggested that I should witness a dissection;but I never accepted his invitations,thinking that my nerves belonged to the living,not to the dead,and I had better finish my education as a nurse before I began that of a surgeon.But I never met the little man skipping through the hall,with oddly shaped cases in his hand,and an absorbed expression of countenance,without being sure that a select party of surgeons were at work in the dead house,which idea was a rather trying one,when I knew the subject was some person whom I had nursed and cared for.
But this must not lead any one to suppose that the surgeons were willfully hard or cruel,though one of them remorsefully confided to me that he feared his profession blunted his sensibilities,and perhaps,rendered him indifferent to the sight of pain.
I am inclined to think that in some cases it does;for,though a capital surgeon and a kindly man,Dr.P.,through long acquaintance with many of the ills flesh is heir to,had acquired a somewhat trying habit of regarding a man and his wound as separate institutions,and seemed rather annoyed that the former should express any opinion upon the latter,or claim any right in it,while under his care.He had a way of twitching off a bandage,and giving a limb a comprehensive sort of clutch,which though no doubt entirely scientific,was rather startling than soothing,and highly objectionable as a means of preparing nerves for any fresh trial.He also expected the patient to assist in small operations,as he considered them,and to restrain all demonstrations during the process.
"Here,my man,just hold it this way,while I look into it a bit,"he said one day to Fitz G.,putting a wounded arm into the keeping of a sound one,and proceeding to poke about among bits of bone and visible muscles,in a red and black chasm made by some infernal machine of the shot or shell deion.Poor Fitz held on like a grim Death,ashamed to show fear before a woman,till it grew more than he could bear in silence;and,after a few smothered groans,he looked at me imploringly,as if he said,"Iwouldn't,ma;am,if I could help it,"and fainted quietly away.
Dr.P.looked up,gave a compassionate sort of cluck,and poked away more busily than ever,with a nod at me and a brief?"Never mind;be so good as to hold this till I finish."I obeyed,cherishing the while a strong desire to insinuate a few of his own disagreeable knives and scissors into him,and see how he liked it.A very disrespectful and ridiculous fancy of course;for he was doing all that could be done,and the arm prospered finely in his hands.But the human mind is prone to prejudice;and though a personable man,speaking French like a born "Parley voo,"and whipping off legs like an animated guillotine,I must confess to a sense of relief when he was ordered elsewhere;and suspect that several of the men would have faced a rebel battery with less trepidation than they did Dr.P.,when he came briskly in on his morning round.
