Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1916 — FAENGHWOMENHELP [ARTICLE]

FAENGHWOMENHELP

-66,449 Enlisted Under Banner of the Red Cross. # ______ They Come From Well-to-Do Homes and Have Exhibited Rare Heroism in Devotion to Duty—Equip 1,500 Hospitals. Paris. —There are now 66,449 women in the French Red Cross volunteer army, equipping 1,500 hospitals with an aggregate of 118,000 beds. The Red Cross flag now flies above 288 buildings in Paris alone. The Society for Aid to Wounded Soldiers, the largest of the three Red Cross organizations and the originator of the work in France in 1864, expended 32,000,000fc5. ($6,400,000) during the first seventeen months of the war. The society has operated 796 hospitals, with 67,081 beds, and given a total of 21,000,000 days’ care to wounded soldiers. Besides these hospitals the society maintains a hospital of 500 beds at Saloniki, ninety-three refuges established in the sixth and twentieth military regions in France, seventy infirmaries in railroad stations and for-ty-five railroad canteens. The cost of maintenance of hospitals varies so much that it is difficult to establish average cost per capita per diem, but as near as can be calculated this society has brought its cost down to a little more than three francs (sixty cents) a day. The Union des Femmes de France, the second in importance of the Red Cross societies, has 28,446 nurßes, equipping 355 hospitals, with 29,000 beds, while the Association des Dames Francaises has 16,000 nurses, in 350 hospitals, with 22,000 beds. The mortality among the Red Cross nurses has been remarkably heavy considering the character of their work and the immunity they are supposed to enjoy-under the international regulations. Twenty-two members of the Society for Aid to the Wounded Soldiers have given their lives to the cause, some of them killed under shell fire, others carried off by contagious diseases. The nurses of this society have received sixty-three epidemic medals, sixty war crosses and one cross of the Legion of Honor. The first Red Cross victim of the war was Mile. Susanne Gilles, who fell at LUneville with her chest torn by the fragments of a shell that burst Inside the hospital ward where she was attending wounded. The next was Mile. Cagnard, at Cambrai, who is declared to have been shot point blank

by a Prussian soldier firing Into the hospital through the window. During the bombardment of Reims Beven women of the Red Cross became victims of the bombardment, including Mme. Fontaine-Faudier, Mile. Causse and five sisters of charity. Many women of the Red Cross give attention to men at the front who have no one to remember them at home. One member, Mme. Richelot, the wife of Dr. L. G. Richelot, is godmother to nine hundred soldiers, which constitutes a record to date. Regarding the state of mind of wounded soldiers now in the hospitals after sixteen months of war, Mme. Perouse, president of the Union des FCmmes de France, said: “They support their sufferings admirably and are much more anxious to return to the front than were the wounded in the hospitals last year at this time. They talk about active service with an enthusiasm that is contagious. Mr. Justin Godart, undersecretary for war, in charge of the sanitary department of the army, has just re-

placed voluntary women of the Red Cross serving as nurses in some of the military hospitals by paid independent nurses. The choice of nurses outside the three Red Cross organizations developed considerable comment, but there was in this no reflection on the devotion of Red Cross nurses; neithei does it bring their efficiency into quea tion. Paid professional nurses are more adaptable to military discipline, which must prevail In all military e* tablishments. Most of the women who devote themselves to hospital work are from well-to-do classes; they are necessarily so, since they are required to give not only their time and sometimes their lives, but also their money to the cause. Some of them pay largely for the privilege of serving the country as maids of all work; others pay more dearly for the privilege of working as surgeons’ aids and as nurses. Few of them were before the war accustomed to the hard work of housekeeping, and some of them have learned Its most elementary principles in the hospitals.