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nursing. This is now slowly but surely being broken down and Hindu
girls of good education are offering themselves for training, but the number
of Mohammedan candidates is still almost negligible. In the nurse
training schools under the Madras Government the number of Indian
pupil nurses is almost 50 per cent. at the present time.

    12. The want of adequate facilities for the training of nurses is one
of the discouraging factors, yet even where the facilities exist, the best
type of woman is still lacking. Other factors for the shortage may be:

        1. That in only a few hospitals is there sufficient teaching staff.

        2. The bad housing accommodation provided in some institutions.

        3. The long hours of duty as compared with other spheres of work.

        4. The lack of recreational facilities.

        5. The overcrowding of wards with patients, leading to overwork
            and overstrain of the nurses.

        6. The present non-recognition of nursing as a profession by the
            Central and Provincial Governments.

There has been a tendency in the past to exploit the nurse probationer as an
essential hospital worker at the expense of her education while in many
hospitals reasonable accommodation, comforts and recreational facilities
are still lacking.

    13. It has recently been said in Europe that the "Nurses are the spinal
cord of the hospital". Would that it were so in India; alas! it is not.
However, during the last ten years, much improvement in nursing has
been carried out. Yet very much more remains to be done before India
can hope to rank her nurses alongside those of other countries of the world.

    14. Advancement of Nursing.—It is noteworthy that since 1934 a con-
siderable change has taken place in the outlook of the Central and Provincial
Governments on the profession of nursing judging by the various Nurses
and Midwives Registration Acts which have been passed and enforced. It
is also being realized that as the populace are losing their prejudice and
fear of entering the hospitals for treatment more attention must be given
to those into whose hands the people entrust their lives. The Surgeons
General and Inspectors General also are realizing that they have neither
the time to give nor the knowledge of nursing detail necessary entirely
to control the provincial nursing cadre as in the past years and desire
the assistance of well qualified and experienced matrons to help them
in their work.

    15. The Inspector General of Civil Hospitals, Bihar, Patna, in his letter
dated 27th April 1938 to the Trained Nurses Association of India,
wrote:—

    "We are interested in the advancement of nursing in Bihar, and should
be glad for information of your association. Meanwhile, Miss Tyzack,
Matron of the Patna Medical College Hospital, is being associated with
the administration of the nurses' work, in the Inspector General of Civil
Hospital's Office."

    In Madras a similar scheme is being considered and it is hoped it
will come into force in the very near future.

D. Chadwick.