Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/258

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ADVICE TO OFFICERS

if need be, send out one of her own trained assistants to superintend the institution we advocate. We sincerely trust it is not yet too late to effect some modification of this kind. The substance of the third resolution of our meeting might be submitted to Miss Nightingale's London committee, with a request that they should sanction the devotion of the sum to be collected to local purposes."

To establish such a staff of nurses is less difficult than may be imagined, now that the means appear forthcoming.

One lady superintendent, six nurses for Calcutta, two for each of the division stations of Barrackpore, Dinapore, Benares, Cawnpore, Merut,Umballah,Lahore, Peshawur, say twenty-five in toto would be enough to try the experiment, with a good prospect of success in the Bengal presidency.

3. MENTAL AFFECTIONS.—I have often been at a loss to account for the indifference shown by the world, as well as by medical officers, towards affections of the mind. When misplaced censure, or unmerited disgrace, or pecuniary loss, or blasted ambition, or disappointed love, or hope long deferred, or death of kindred or consort have disquieted the soul, and steeped the senses in melancholy and despair, when the appetite refuses sustenance and the couch affords no repose, when the mind preys on the body, and the body