Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/314

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298
A Short History of Nursing

298 A Short History of Nursing Italian. Her school and nurses had the name "Blue Cross." In i9io,also with Miss Turton's helpful co-opera- tion, a training school on the English model was established in Rome, in the magnificent Polyclinic hospital, then new and of the very final perfec- tion in plan and equipment. An English nurse, Dorothy Snell, was given charge. Head nurses directed the wards and Italian pupils of a most desirable quality were attracted. The school had the highest medical and surgical backing, the Queen of Italy was in great sympathy and took personal interest in it, and by the time the war reached Italy this school was solidly certain of permanency. The war gave nursing in Italy, as elsewhere, a greater prestige and stimulus, and the extension of the Nightingale system there may be regarded as accomplished. A national association has also arisen there with this interesting feature ; professional nurses are be- ing helped in their aims by young women of titled families who acted as volunteer war workers, and then became deeply interested in public health nursing through acquaintance with American nurses in Italy who were there with the Red Cross. The introduction of the Nightingale system into