Note 3 — Subsidiary Notes as to the Introduction of Female Nursing into Military Hospitals in Peace and in War.

The work was done under many difficulties, some inevitable, some which should have been spared. Things happened among us deeply to be regretted. Rebellion among some ladies and some nuns, and drunkenness among some nurses unhappily disgraced our body; minor faults justified pro tanto the common opinion that the vanity, the gossip, and the insubordination (which none more despise than those who trade upon them) of women make them unfit for, and mischievous in the Service, however materially useful they may be in it. Of all this, the material consequences might have been spared by some such “General Order” as the above, which, at least, prevents others from taking advantage and making capital of such faults.