e nurses, who might report me to that
Royal woman-hater, Dr. Baxter, surgeon in charge, whose name was a
terror to women who intruded themselves into military hospitals.

As I passed, with my pitcher, I saw one man delerious, and
expectorating, profusely, a matter green as grass could be--knew this
was hospital gangrene, and remembered all Dr. Palmer had told me years
before, of his experience in Paris hospitals, and the antidotes to that
and scurvey poison. Indeed, the results of many conversations with
first-class physicians, and of some reading on the subject of camp
diseases, came to me; and I knew just what was wanted here, but saw no
sign that the want was likely to be supplied. For this man it was too
late, but I could not see that anything was being done to prevent the
spread of this fearful scourge.

Passing from that ward into the one adjoining, I came suddenly upon two
nurses dressing a thigh stump, while the patient filled the air with
half-suppressed shrieks and groans. I had never before seen a stump, but
remembered Dr. Jackson's lecture over the watermellon at desert, on
amputation, for the benefit of Charles Sumner; and electricity never
brought light quicker than there came to me the memory of all he had
said about the proper arrangement of the muscles over the end of the
bone; and added to this, came a perfect knowledge of the relations of
those mangled muscles to the general form of the body. I saw that the
nurse who held the stump tortured the man by disregarding natural law,
and setting down pitcher and glass on the floor, I stepped up, knelt,
slipped my hands under the remains of that strong thigh, and said to the
man who held it:

"Now, slip out your hands! easy! easy! there!" The instant it rested on
my hands the groans ceased, and I said:

"Is that better?"

"Oh, my God! yes!"

"Well, then, I will always hold it when it is dressed!"

"But you will not be here!"

"I will come!"

"That would be too much trouble!"

"I have nothing else to do, and will think it no trouble!"

The nurse, who did the dressing, was very gentle, and there was no more
pain; but I saw that the other leg was amputated below the knee, and
this was a double reason why he should be tenderly cared for. So I took
the nurse aside, and asked when the wounds were to be dressed again. He
said in the morning, and promised to wait until I came to help. Next
morning I was so much afraid of being late that I would not wait