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SELECTION TESTS FOR NURSES
63
A careful search has often failed to disclose causal bacteria in outbreaks of diarrhoea and vomiting in which the circumstances undoubtedly pointed to an infecting agent transmitted by brief personal contact like influenza virus. In other outbreaks water or milk have seemed likely to be the vehicle of transmission, judging by the general epidemiological picture, and yet both have passed all accepted tests. Extended observations of the type reported by Reimann and others are needed before the existence of human enteritis caused by virus can be freely accepted. Observers of future outbreaks of gastric influenza " or epidemic neonatal diarrhoea need not be at a loss for working hypotheses, for, in addition to the heat-resistance and aerial transmission of enterotropic agents suggested by the recent experimental work, there is the possibility that such agents, although initially pathogenic for a single species of domestic animal, may suddenly acquire the property of affecting the human intestine. I
,
.
There does seem, however, to be an important use for selection tests among the higher grades of nurses. Would it not be well to introduce them for prospective ward sisters, sister tutors, home sisters, and perhaps even matrons ? This would be in line with the Forces’ practice in selecting men for skilled mechanical work and for other posts requiring special qualities. MALNUTRITION
IN BELGIUM
DURING the German occupation Belgium suffered a restriction of official rations which must have meant famine if it had not been countered by a nation-wide organisation of the clandestine market. This differed from the subsequent black market, run primarily for private profit, in that it represented a rough-and-ready From means of survival at the expense of the invader. the nutritional standpoint the worst period was in 1941-42, before this organisation was perfected and before the rations had been supplemented by the distribution of herrings. Those who saw Belgium for the first time SELECTION TESTS FOR NURSES at the Liberation were apt to overlook the deprivations THE General Nursing Council recently decided to bring which the country had previously passed, with through back the test educational examination which before the their attendant death-rate from tuberculosis and malwar was set to nursing candidates entering hospital. This has alarmed some employing authorities, who feel nutrition. True, the health of the children had been to a extent protected, but only at the price of allocating they have trouble enough already in finding candidates alllarge milk to young children and invalids, at the expense for nursing training. The Royal College of Nursing, of adolescents and adults. while it holds that the idea of a test is sound in principle, From the wealth of material unfortunately available, thinks that the general-knowledge test of the past merely a number of valuable studies have been made. These threw light on the candidate’s schooling and home include the Bastenie (Midecine Libre) report, Professor and no idea of her for background, gave aptitude nursing. Govaerts’s studies of famine cedema-of which he was It suggests that the old form of examination should be able to observe several hundred cases in Brussels alonereplaced by a series of tests designed to show whether the Lucien Gárot’s report to the CEuvre Nationale de candidate has the mental and practical qualities required Professor Colard’s Alimentation de la Belgique 1’Enfance, of a nurse. This interesting suggestion springs from sous l’Occupation Allemande 1940-44, and now a book a belief that the great wastage of student nurses is due Professor Lucien Brull of Liege and his associates. largely to the acceptance of unsuitable types for training. by last describes some sixteen studies on various This In a memorandum on the subject the college points out of malnutrition, including observations on manifestations that the use of selection tests in the Forces during the and serum proteins in over 9000 blood-pressure, weight, all life war made it possible to use men from walks of to and on haemoglobin levels, famine oedema, good advantage. This is true enough. On the other outpatients, intestinal function, the incidence of balance, nitrogen hand the Forces never attempted to apply their selection the assimilation of wholemeal bread and ulcer, peptic tests to those about to be recruited ; they needed great and the of vitamin C on workmen’s influence numbers of men and they had to accept all those who bran, to resistance The conclude that fatigue. investigators passed the doctor, using them as best they could. Now the is factor in protein deficiency principal pathogenic this is exactly the plight of the nursing service today : we need such enormous numbers of nurses that we must famine oedema, leading to a fall in serum proteins and consequently diminished osmotic pressure, and also to gladly accept all those who come, and must then find ways thyroid dysfunction resulting in diminution of cardiac of employing them to full advantage. It would surely output and renal activity. Their monograph is. a be unwise at this stage to put any further obstacle in the valuable contribution to the understanding of malnutriway of the girl who thinks she wants to nurse ; for memand when one considers the conditions under which tion, bers of the nursing profession, unlike most members of the Forces, are volunteers ; and they also retain the right they worked they are the more to be congratulated. The resumes in English are detailed enough to provide of voluntary withdrawal-a right which they seem to be readers with the more important conclusions. English with freedom. No doubt it would increasing exercising save the time of sister tutors if all candidates were tolerON,Friday, Tan. 25, at 5 P.M. Dr. LEONARD COLEBROOK, ably educated and capable of mastering technical details F.R.s., will deliver the seventh Blair-Bell lecture to the as stand at this is from the start : but things present Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. His asking for the moon. There are not enough secondary- title is to be Looking Backwards and Forwards : Control school and high-school girls in the country to meet the of Infection in Obstetrics, needs of nursing and of the other professions and occupaSir ALEXANDER MACGREGOR, M.D., has been appointed tions open to women. Nevertheless very large numbers chairman of the scientific advisory committee to the of girls start to train as nurses every year. Some of these Department of Health for Scotland in succession to are simple, and some barely literate ; but those of us who Sir JOHN ORR, M.D., F.R.S., who has resigned from the have worked with such girls know how well they may chairmanship but remains a member of the committee. do, given proper training. Proper training for nursing is not given primarily in the classroom : a girl may be the 1. Les Etats de Carence en Belgique pendant l’occupation allemande 1940-44. Liége: Editions Soledi, and Paris: Hermann et Cie. despair of the sister tutor and the lecturing doctor, but Pp. 286. the ward sister who gets at her over a bed with a sick child between them may find in her the ability to make a A COLLECTION of medical and scientific books published in patient comfortable. Since we cannot pick and choose Britain during the war and sent to Russia by the British our candidates at present, our best course surely is to Council was lately exhibited at the State Central Medical find ways of developing the latent ability to nurse in the Library in Moscow. Some 700 doctors and medical students simpler type of girl rather than to demand that she visited the exhibition, which also included the books sent to should conform to some arbitrary pattern. the library by the council during the war years. "
A careful search has often failed to disclose causal bacteria in outbreaks of diarrhoea and vomiting in which the circumstances undoubtedly pointed to an infecting agent transmitted by brief personal contact like influenza virus. In other outbreaks water or milk have seemed likely to be the vehicle of transmission, judging by the general epidemiological picture, and yet both have passed all accepted tests. Extended observations of the type reported by Reimann and others are needed before the existence of human enteritis caused by virus can be freely accepted. Observers of future outbreaks of gastric influenza " or epidemic neonatal diarrhoea need not be at a loss for working hypotheses, for, in addition to the heat-resistance and aerial transmission of enterotropic agents suggested by the recent experimental work, there is the possibility that such agents, although initially pathogenic for a single species of domestic animal, may suddenly acquire the property of affecting the human intestine. I
,
.
There does seem, however, to be an important use for selection tests among the higher grades of nurses. Would it not be well to introduce them for prospective ward sisters, sister tutors, home sisters, and perhaps even matrons ? This would be in line with the Forces’ practice in selecting men for skilled mechanical work and for other posts requiring special qualities. MALNUTRITION
IN BELGIUM
DURING the German occupation Belgium suffered a restriction of official rations which must have meant famine if it had not been countered by a nation-wide organisation of the clandestine market. This differed from the subsequent black market, run primarily for private profit, in that it represented a rough-and-ready From means of survival at the expense of the invader. the nutritional standpoint the worst period was in 1941-42, before this organisation was perfected and before the rations had been supplemented by the distribution of herrings. Those who saw Belgium for the first time SELECTION TESTS FOR NURSES at the Liberation were apt to overlook the deprivations THE General Nursing Council recently decided to bring which the country had previously passed, with through back the test educational examination which before the their attendant death-rate from tuberculosis and malwar was set to nursing candidates entering hospital. This has alarmed some employing authorities, who feel nutrition. True, the health of the children had been to a extent protected, but only at the price of allocating they have trouble enough already in finding candidates alllarge milk to young children and invalids, at the expense for nursing training. The Royal College of Nursing, of adolescents and adults. while it holds that the idea of a test is sound in principle, From the wealth of material unfortunately available, thinks that the general-knowledge test of the past merely a number of valuable studies have been made. These threw light on the candidate’s schooling and home include the Bastenie (Midecine Libre) report, Professor and no idea of her for background, gave aptitude nursing. Govaerts’s studies of famine cedema-of which he was It suggests that the old form of examination should be able to observe several hundred cases in Brussels alonereplaced by a series of tests designed to show whether the Lucien Gárot’s report to the CEuvre Nationale de candidate has the mental and practical qualities required Professor Colard’s Alimentation de la Belgique 1’Enfance, of a nurse. This interesting suggestion springs from sous l’Occupation Allemande 1940-44, and now a book a belief that the great wastage of student nurses is due Professor Lucien Brull of Liege and his associates. largely to the acceptance of unsuitable types for training. by last describes some sixteen studies on various This In a memorandum on the subject the college points out of malnutrition, including observations on manifestations that the use of selection tests in the Forces during the and serum proteins in over 9000 blood-pressure, weight, all life war made it possible to use men from walks of to and on haemoglobin levels, famine oedema, good advantage. This is true enough. On the other outpatients, intestinal function, the incidence of balance, nitrogen hand the Forces never attempted to apply their selection the assimilation of wholemeal bread and ulcer, peptic tests to those about to be recruited ; they needed great and the of vitamin C on workmen’s influence numbers of men and they had to accept all those who bran, to resistance The conclude that fatigue. investigators passed the doctor, using them as best they could. Now the is factor in protein deficiency principal pathogenic this is exactly the plight of the nursing service today : we need such enormous numbers of nurses that we must famine oedema, leading to a fall in serum proteins and consequently diminished osmotic pressure, and also to gladly accept all those who come, and must then find ways thyroid dysfunction resulting in diminution of cardiac of employing them to full advantage. It would surely output and renal activity. Their monograph is. a be unwise at this stage to put any further obstacle in the valuable contribution to the understanding of malnutriway of the girl who thinks she wants to nurse ; for memand when one considers the conditions under which tion, bers of the nursing profession, unlike most members of the Forces, are volunteers ; and they also retain the right they worked they are the more to be congratulated. The resumes in English are detailed enough to provide of voluntary withdrawal-a right which they seem to be readers with the more important conclusions. English with freedom. No doubt it would increasing exercising save the time of sister tutors if all candidates were tolerON,Friday, Tan. 25, at 5 P.M. Dr. LEONARD COLEBROOK, ably educated and capable of mastering technical details F.R.s., will deliver the seventh Blair-Bell lecture to the as stand at this is from the start : but things present Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. His asking for the moon. There are not enough secondary- title is to be Looking Backwards and Forwards : Control school and high-school girls in the country to meet the of Infection in Obstetrics, needs of nursing and of the other professions and occupaSir ALEXANDER MACGREGOR, M.D., has been appointed tions open to women. Nevertheless very large numbers chairman of the scientific advisory committee to the of girls start to train as nurses every year. Some of these Department of Health for Scotland in succession to are simple, and some barely literate ; but those of us who Sir JOHN ORR, M.D., F.R.S., who has resigned from the have worked with such girls know how well they may chairmanship but remains a member of the committee. do, given proper training. Proper training for nursing is not given primarily in the classroom : a girl may be the 1. Les Etats de Carence en Belgique pendant l’occupation allemande 1940-44. Liége: Editions Soledi, and Paris: Hermann et Cie. despair of the sister tutor and the lecturing doctor, but Pp. 286. the ward sister who gets at her over a bed with a sick child between them may find in her the ability to make a A COLLECTION of medical and scientific books published in patient comfortable. Since we cannot pick and choose Britain during the war and sent to Russia by the British our candidates at present, our best course surely is to Council was lately exhibited at the State Central Medical find ways of developing the latent ability to nurse in the Library in Moscow. Some 700 doctors and medical students simpler type of girl rather than to demand that she visited the exhibition, which also included the books sent to should conform to some arbitrary pattern. the library by the council during the war years. "