The Dark Period in Nursing loi When the Sisters of Charity had progressed to the point where they were sent to distant parishes to do visiting nursing, St. Vincent counselled them not to take more than eight nursing cases at one time. This is just the number that mod- ern visiting nurses have found cannot well be exceeded in one day's work, if good nursing is to be done. The Sisters of Charity brought youth, enthu- siasm, and fresh zeal into nursing. They became widely popular, and their mother houses soon en- circled the globe. They took charge of hospitals, foundling asylums, homes for the insane, and general parish work. The French army adopted them, and they gave heroic service during the Napoleonic wars. In the early days of the Crimean War, war correspondents after describing the deplorable conditions in the English regiments, pointed out the fact that an ample staff of Sisters of Charity had accompanied the French forces. The order was introduced into the United States in 1808 by Mrs. Seton, at Emmettsburg, Mary- land. The Sisters of Charity now have many training schools for nurses on the modern sys- tem, in their hospitals, in this country and in Ireland. The painful social conditions of the eighteenth
