of the families she visits. As Miss Nightingale has said, the district nurse is a health missionary.

In looking at the hungry faces of the children the nurse cannot help thinking of the wicked waste of the butter, etc., in the hospitals. What better lesson could she have in the necessity of economy? Tact, courtesy, adaptability, power of invention, power of imparting knowledge and economy are surely desirable qualities in a nurse's character, and education in these directions can be best

gained in district nursing under the supervision of a woman who herself is imbued with the spirit of this higher branch of the nursing profession. If the effects of such a training are so great mentally and practically, what must they be morally? Surely the womanly sympathies of the student nurse, her unselfishness and her love of serving, must under such conditions of service become intensified, so that afterwards through her whole nursing career she must indeed be a blessing to her patients and their families.

TH

HE Day Nursery as an institution needs little or no introduction; it exists, nay, lives in nearly every city or large town of America. By its growth and extension it has demonstrated its "right to be," and each successive year has brought new suggestions for work, new lines of helpfulness; with its infinite possibilities and its far-reaching influences, one cannot forecast its future greatness.

Day nurseries, as the name implies, were established for the purpose of caring for young children during the day while the mother was at work. The purpose, with its fulfilment, remains unchanged--but the work has been so enlarged that it now embraces several forms of child charity.

Phillips Brooks said: "He who helps a child helps humanity with a distinctness, with an immediateness which no other help given to human creatures in any other stage of human life can possibly give again." This is the sentiment, the underlying principle of the day nursery. We feel as an institution that we have commenced at the right end of

Trained Nurses

the work-beginning at the outset of life, not at its close. Some one has said, "They who save the life or nature of a child, rescue a day." However, the object of this paper is not to discuss the benefits and workings of this particular charity, but to give a few details concerning nursery work as a field of labor for nurses.

The regulations governing day nurseries are about the same in every place, variations of the general rules being made to suit individual nurseries and localities.

1. Nursery open from 7 A. M. to 6 P. M.

2. Children must be brought clean, head free from vermin. (This rule is observed in the abstract.)

3. No food or candy to be brought to the

nursery.

4. Fees must be paid daily.

The rules are, like the annals of the poor, short and simple. When you enforce them, you find them both difficult and lengthy enough—you do not fail, nor do you fully succeed. With rule two, you must be satisfied if an effort is made towards its fulfilment;

ideas of cleanliness are so widely different, and we must take into consideration the meagre toilet arrangements of the tenement dweller and give a generous interpretation to the rule. Eternal vigilance may enforce rule three-and eternal vigilance only. Almost any morning you may find in pockets such contraband articles as limes, pickles, bologna sausage and such dainties (?).

The food question next arises. Nursery children are, as a rule, all abnormal (of course, there are a few exceptions), body and brain alike undeveloped. Bodies illy-nourished, physical and mental strength below par. All these ills are traceable to living in close human contact, to impure atmosphere and to lack of proper food. Here is the opportunity of the day nursery, by supplying proper food, to build up the child, and make him physically strong. The nurse, with her knowledge of food values, can easily arrange a diet list that, with the smallest expenditure, will give the best results.

In some nurseries breakfast is given at seven o'clock; in others, a light lunch of bread, or cookies and milk, is given at 8.30; then comes a full dinner at 11.45 and a substantial lunch at 4.30. The food list can be changed to suit individual cases. In our own particular nursery the diet list for children from three to six is as follows:

DINNER.

Beef stew, potatoes and carrots, bread, boiled rice with milk. In summer we substitute rice pudding made with milk and eggs on alternate Mondays.

SUPPER.

Bread and butter, stewed prunes; milk to drink.

Each day we have something different plain, simple food, well cooked and well served.

For the babies and small children another list must be compiled. For the bottle-fed babies the visiting doctor will prescribe the general formula and you can add thereto or

subtract therefrom as the special case demands. All the baby lore you've acquired in your training you will need in this particular branch of the work. For you have to fight against ignorance, neglect and indifference of the mothers. What you've done during the day for the child is undone at night by the mother's indifference to the proper care of the baby. It is fed tea from the bottle, given food of all sorts, and brought in in the morning with the report, "He was awful fussy last night, hungry, I guess. I feed him," etc. They will not, cannot understand that the poor baby is suffering from overfeeding.

It is within our province, it is our privilege, to try and impress these women with the responsibility of motherhood. Many of them are but children themselves, with no one to help them. A true, honest friend is their greatest need, and if one out of ten awakes to the benefit of proper feeding and care for the baby, something has been accomplished.

Emergencies-training has made us ready for these are constantly arising; bumped heads, convulsions, croup and, many times, fits. Of course, you will send at once for the visiting physician; in the meantime do what you have been taught to do. Knowing how has averted many a serious result in nursery work.

In the matter of discipline: Slight punishments are awarded for naughtiness of intentional kind; rewards are given and occasional treats for obedience and kindness.

Periods of the day must be given to rest. By observation you will soon discover that it is, oftentimes, lack of sleep, of rest, which makes Jennie or Johnnie perverse and wilful. You must study child nature, not one type only, but universal child nature, to get best results in the day nursery work. You want to know each individual child, not only their name, but their individuality.

Does day nursery work pay? Pecuniarily, yes-not lavishly, but in a moderate, sure salary, and an abiding place which can be

called home. But from the point of service and usefulness to one's fellow beings it pays lavishly. When you are enrolled as a day nursery worker you become the person of one idea, and that idea is the day nursery. You are imbued with the spirit of the day nursery, saturated with it-you simply live day nursery. A neglected child on the street is hardly safe from your hands, which long to seize him and carry him to the nursery.

To those who enter the ranks, I say to them: Add to your stock of patience a little more patience and to that a little more patience; you'll need it all. Discouraging things are all about you, but each day has its compensations, and in all your work follow Emerson's suggestion, "Do not bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good and keep at it." Learn to look at things from the point of view of those among whom you work; visit the homes of the children, not as a promiscuous adviser or private investigator, but as one friend visits another, with the common love of the children as a bond between you. You can use all your

training and as much more, and all that is bravest and noblest in your womanhood in day nursery work. Even a week's toil is repaid by one incident as small as the following:

A little boy, a foreigner, came to me one day and said: "I loves everybody, I loves you and I loves God, but I loves you best."

Didn't that pay? And doesn't it pay when a woman leaving the place comes to you and says, "The only bright spot I've known in my life here is the day nursery"?

There are so many of the practical things concerning the work left unsaid, but when you are in the work you will find them out for yourselves. Whether as nurses, or in nursery work, let each one of us live up to our duty day by day, content not to look beyond, trusting the morrow in God's hands, who is able to do better for the children of our care than we ourselves, much as we plan, much as we long to do for them; the work is ours-results are God's.

"Oh, heart like a flower's
Is the heart of a child."

T

HE poppy, whose milky juice yields opium, is described as a large white or bluish-purple flower; and as a white flower with a purple eye. It is commonly referred to as the White Poppy, whose botanical name is Papaver somniferum.

The common scarlet poppies are natives of Britain. The petals of one species, the Papaver Rhaas, yields a red dye when placed in water. The syrup of the red poppy acts like opium, but much more mildly.

However, it is the White Poppy with which our subject deals. This species is an exotic in Britain, but is extensively cultivated in North and Central India, Asia Minor and Egypt. The central tract of the Ganges, whose area is about 600 miles in length by 200 in width, is the principal opium region. It was estimated in the years 1871-72 that 560,000 acres were under actual poppy cultivation. One mode of raising the poppy is described by an authority as follows:

"The ryot, or cultivator, having selected a piece of ground, always preferring (cæteris paribus) that which is nearest his house, fences it in. He then, by repeated ploughings, makes it completely fine and removes all the weeds and grass. Next he divides the field into two or more beds by small dykes of mold, running lengthwise or crosswise, according to the slope and nature of the ground, and again into smaller squares by dykes leading from the principal ones. A tank about ten feet deep is dug at one end of the field from which, by means of a leathern bucket, water is raised into one of the principal dykes and carried to every part as required. The irrigation is necessary because the cultivation is carried on in dry weather. The seed is sown in November and the juice collected in February and March, during a period usually of

about six weeks. Weeding and watering commence as soon as the plants spring up and are continued until the poppies come to maturity.

Cuts are then made with a small shell or knife in the rind of the seed-vessels; from them the juice exudes during the night and is scraped off in the morning. When the heads are exhausted they become whitish."

It seems that this identical process was described more than 1,800 years ago by Dioscorides. The juice was spoken of by Galen as lachryma papaveris, or poppy tears. We are further informed that the medicinal properties of the juice were well known even in the third century before Christ.

Other authorities describe the treatment of the capsule and the gathering of the juice thus:

"In Behar the sowing takes place at the beginning of November, and the capsules are scarified in February or March (March or April in Malwa). This operation is performed with a peculiar instrument called a nutshur, having three or four two-pointed blades bound together with a cotton thread. In using the nutshur only one set of points is brought into use at a time, the capsule being scarified vertically from base to summit. This scarification is repeated on different sides of the capsule at intervals of a few days, from two to six times. In many districts of Bengal transverse cuts are made in the poppy-head, as in Asia Minor.

"The milky juice is scraped off early in the following morning with an iron scoop, which, as it becomes filled, is emptied into an earthen pot carried by the collector's side. In Malwa a flat scraper is used, which, as well as the fingers of the gatherer, is wetted from time to time in linseed oil to prevent the adhesion

of the glutinous juice. All accounts represent the juice as being in a very moist state by reason of the dew, which even sometimes washes it away.

"The juice when brought home is a wet, granular mass of pinkish color, and in the bottom of the vessel in which it is contained there collects a dark fluid resembling coffee, which is called pasewa. The recent juice strongly resembles litmus and blackens metallic iron. It is placed in a shallow earthen vessel, which is tilted in such a manner that the pasewa may drain off as long as there is any of it to be separated. This liquor is set aside in a covered vessel. The residual mass is now exposed to the air, though never to the sun, and turned over every few days to promote its attaining the proper degree of dryness, which, according to the Benares regulations, allows of 30 per cent. of moisture. This drying operation occupies three or four weeks.

"The drug is then taken to the Government factory for sale; previous to being sold it is examined for adulteration by a native expert and its proportion of water is also carefully determined. Having been received into stock it undergoes but little treatment, beyond a thorough mixing, until it is required to be formed into globular cakes. First, the quantity of opium is weighed out, and having been formed into a ball is enveloped in a crust of dried poppy petals skilfully agglutinated one over the other by means of a liquid called lewa. This consists partly of good opium, partly of pasewa, and partly of opium of inferior quality, all being mixed with the washings of the various pots and vessels which have contained opium, and then evaporated to a thick fluid, 100 gr. of which should afford 53 of dry residue.

"The finished balls, usually called cakes, which are quite spherical and have a diameter of six inches, are rolled in poppy-trash, which is the name given to the coarsely powdered stalks, capsules and leaves of the plant.

They are then placed in small dishes and exposed directly to the rays of the sun. Should any become distended it is at once opened, the gas allowed to escape and the cake made up again. After three days the cakes are placed (by the end of July) in frames in the factory, where the air is allowed to circulate. They still, however, require constant watching and turning as they are liable to contract mildew, which has to be removed by rubbing in poppy-trash. By October the cakes have become perfectly dry externally and quite hard, and are in condition to be packed in cases (40 cakes in each) for the Chinese market, which consumes the great bulk of the manufacture."

Opium is by no means a simple substance, being made up of 17 alkaloids, besides 2 neutral bodies, 2 organic acids, wax, gum, sugar, resin, extractives, odorous principles, etc. The composition of some of these substances is not clearly established. The principal alkaloids of opium are:

Morphine (the most important).-Hypnotic, anodyne and narcotic. Dose, gr. 1-20 to.

Narcotine (wrongly named, as it has no narcotic action).-It is a tetanizer and highly antiperiodic. Dose, gr. j. to v.

Codeine.-Calmative, and not remarkably constipating. Dose, gr. 1-5 to j.

Narceine. Probably the most hypnotic of the six. Dose, gr. to.

Thebaine. Not used medicinally; is extremely poisonous. It is a tetanizer. Papaverine.—Action doubtful, narcotic and convulsant.

The above principles are combined in the plant with meconic and lactic acids.

From morphine is derived apomorphine, which is an artificial alkaloid and a powerful emetic, the hydrochlorate of which is official, and may be administered by mouth in -grain doses, or gr. 1-16 hypodermically. Morphine in solution will change to apomorphine if kept too long.