Letter to a Nursing Convention in St. Louis

Miss Landy and I, nurses for the Daughters of Zion of America, send greetings from Jerusalem to our friends at the convention to be held in St. Louis. We greatly appreciate the interest you have taken in the work of the Daughters of Zion, and consequently in our work in the Holy Land.

The object of the Daughters of Zion in sending us to Palestine was to inaugurate a system of district visiting nursing among the Jewish poor of Jerusalem. Although the Society was organized as late as March, 1912,—by January, 1913, we were on our way to the Orient. I can best tell you about our work under four headings:

First, District Visiting. The poverty among the Jews in Jerusalem can perhaps be equaled nowhere else. It is especially severe among the Jews who have recently emigrated from Persia, and among the Yemenites, or Arabian Jews, who are coming to Palestine in large numbers, owing to persecution. Frequently these poor emigrants lack all necessaries of life. Their homes usually consist of one room, housing a family of from two to ten members. These cabins are often built out of tin taken from discarded Standard Oil cans. Beds and chairs are seldom to be found. The people sleep on straw mats on the floor. If there happens to be a bed, as many of the family as the bed can hold, get into it. I have often come into homes of our patients during the Winter, to find visitors in bed with the patients, for it was warmer there than on a mat on the floor. Under the conditions described above, it can easily be imagined how difficult it is to nurse a very sick person in a poor home in Jerusalem. It is true there are four Jewish Hospitals in the City, but they can accommodate only 120 patients in all, and are totally inadequate for a Jewish population of about 60,000. Nevertheless, we succeed in placing our most difficult cases in hospitals, and manage to take care for those who are not in need of hospital treatment in their homes, providing them with a physician, medication, food, and if necessary, with clothing. The Daughters of Zion subsidize an excellent physician, a graduate of a medical college in Paris, to treat our cases, gratis. He sees our patients in his office, or when necessary, in their own homes.

Second, Supervision of Midwives. The Daughters of Zion pay three midwives to take care of poor Jewish women who are too destitute themselves to pay for the necessary service. Our Doctor assigns each midwife to her cases, and they work under our supervision. As soon as the patient is confined, the midwife reports the case to us. Either Miss Landy or I visit the patient, take a short history of the case, and do whatever we find necessary. It is usually a case requiring the feeding up and clothing of the patient—providing milk, eggs, groceries, a little outfit for the baby, and underwear for the mother. Often we have to hire some woman to take care of the patient’s home. If any other member of the family happens to be ill at such a time, we of course render the necessary assistance. In spite of the fact that living conditions in the poor quarters of Jerusalem are unsanitary, and owing to the lack of water, cleanliness is often literally impossible, yet our midwives during their year and a half of active service, have not had a single case of infection. Although the work of the midwives is now under the jurisdiction of the Daughters of Zion, it was organized a short time before the Society began to engage in Palestinian welfare work. Miss Eva Léon originated the undertaking, and later subordinated it to the larger plans of the Daughters of Zion, of which Society she is a member.

Third, Trachoma Treatments. Miss Landy and I give half a day to trachoma treatments in the Jewish Schools. Twenty per cent of this school population is afflicted with that disease. We nurses work under the direction of an oculist, whose services are engaged for that purpose by the Daughters of Zion. The patients at each school are treated daily, and are reëxamined every two or three weeks. All the pupils (in this case not only the patients, but all the children) are reëxamined every two months. In light cases, treatment lasts for three months. It takes a year or longer to cure an old case, of course, sometimes they cannot be cured. Our trachoma work so far has taken us into 24 schools. In these trachoma treatments, it must be noted that we are not working alone. We have the coöperation of several doctors. nurses, and trained assistants, and of course the examinations themselves are conducted by the specialist referred to above, as supervising our work.

Fourth, Settlement House. The quarters that we have rented in Jerusalem are used not only for residential purposes, but also as clinic and Settlement House, to which people come for treatment or for counsel. On some days, we have as many as fourteen visitors, of whom perhaps only one or two have come to apply for professional service.