MODERN IRISH MISSIONARIES OF THE SPIRIT 
“The hospitals in the cities were like prisons, with 
bare undecorated walls and little dark rooms, small 
windows where no sun could enter and dismal wards 
where fifty or one hundred patients were crowded 
together deprived of all comforts and even of neces- 
saries.’’ 
He emphasizes the contrast between the muni- 
cipal and state institutions of this period and “the 
beautiful gardens, roomy halls and springs of water 
of the old cloister hospitals of the Middle Ages.” 
There was none of these, “still less the comforts of 
their friendly interior.” 
The nursing was awful. Dr. Stephen Smith who 
introduced the trained nurse into this country told 
the story of the sort of nurses that they had—the 
only ones they could get—at Bellevue Hospital. 
They were the “ten day women,” that is women who 
had been sentenced to ten days in the workhouse for 
being drunk and disorderly and who when they 
sobered up if they had had any experience in family 
nursing were transferred to the hospital side of 
Bellevue to take care of the sick. The nurses in 
England were as bad if not worse. Dickens’ descrip- 
tion of Sairey Gamp is usually considered one of 
his worst caricatures, utterly exaggerated for effect. 
It is a literal description of the actuality around 
him. Miss Nutting and Miss Dock say, “The 
drunk and untrustworthy Gamp was the only pro- 
fessional nurse,” and they add, “In England where 
the religious orders had been suppressed and no sub- 
stitute organization given, it might almost be said 
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