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Question, about this part of the letter: "I have four day nurses and five night nurses (female) a ward-master, and four orderlies". Does anyone know why it was

Question, about this part of the letter: "I have four day nurses and five night nurses (female) a ward-master, and four orderlies". Does anyone know why it was important to point out they were female? Were army nurses typically male? Anyways, I'm reading about the 1918 flu a lot lately and came upon parts of this text multiple times. I'm still not sure if it's making me more or less paranoid about Covid-19, but it's definitely fascinating.

bArray 7y ago
I'm sure if we start a Twitter storm about it, we can get him cancelled. /s Personally I think it was just observational, perhaps they were the only women in the place, so they were the exception. From what I know, historically nurses have been mostly female - but would be interested to find out if this was different.
- Insanity 7y ago
  Yup that was my understanding as well. Not sure why I'm being downvoted, it was a genuine question lol
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    People are positively petrified of anything that even uses the same words as politically incorrect speech.
    - Tade0 7y ago
      I wonder how well this approach is going to survive the current pandemic? I mean, is it me, or the amount of posts calling to get someone cancelled subsided?
      - alharith 7y ago
        Are you kidding me? Look at the current hash tags on twitter. Miserable people never stop.
      - Waterluvian 7y ago
        The canary I'm watching is the whole "Chinese" or "Wuhan" vs. "COVID" virus naming issue. I think it is very clearly not the right time to point fingers. But when this is all past us, a post-mortem and finger pointing is probably warranted. I don't think we need to resort to name calling, but I'm curious to see how much people bend over backwards to absolve China of responsibility.
        whatshisface 7y ago
        I think the most evenhanded answer would be to use the correct names (SARS-CoV-2 for the virus, Sars 2 for short, COVID-19 for the disease, Covid for short) while freely reminding people that China's initial cover-up was a necessary condition for the present global crisis.
        zaat 7y ago
        While these are all correct and proper, everyone I know is on first terms with it and so we all call the virus and the disease Corona.
        SCHiM 7y ago
        While I think that's a valid point to make. My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response in the total state space. Hindsight and all that. I think a much more powerful complaint is pointing out that, despite numerous warnings, studies, SARS, and having successfully isolated the root cause of the SARS outbreak (Civets). Only four months later these animals were back on the menu. The government made a rational choice to allow the conditions for the current situation to exist. The whole world is paying the price for this rational, prolonged and often pointed out mistake. That, I think, is a complaint we can lay wholly on the government.
        twomoretime 7y ago
        >My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response You can fault an authoritarian, oppressive regime for covering up the virus and suppressing whistleblowers. Now the world is paying for the CCP's SOP.
    - sdegutis 7y ago
      Explains the “playing the straight man” story recently in another thread.
    - cheez 7y ago
      Is this going to go away with the virus?
  - gowld 7y ago
    Often a valid tangentialy comment gets rightly downvoted simply because its current vote total puts it higher on the page than more relevant comments.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    Don't read anything into downvoting, especially soon after your comment is posted. Give it time to settle out.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
This gives me a cert warning, but it quotes something in a way that implies that may have been sort of the formal designation: Nurses Corps (female) https://history.amedd.army.mil/ANCWebsite/articles/malenurses.html https://history.amedd.army.mil/ANCWebsite/articles/malenurse... I've googled around a bit and when Florence Nightingale did her thing, it was mostly male nurses in the military. By early 1900s, this had changed, at least in the US, and most nurses were female.
- Insanity 7y ago
  Thanks, I suppose that might have been why indeed!
jiveturkey 7y ago
Is he referring to the ward-master? Which maybe is more often male?

bArray 7y ago

I'm sure if we start a Twitter storm about it, we can get him cancelled. /s Personally I think it was just observational, perhaps they were the only women in the place, so they were the exception. From what I know, historically nurses have been mostly female - but would be interested to find out if this was different.

Insanity 7y ago
Yup that was my understanding as well. Not sure why I'm being downvoted, it was a genuine question lol
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  People are positively petrified of anything that even uses the same words as politically incorrect speech.
  - Tade0 7y ago
    I wonder how well this approach is going to survive the current pandemic? I mean, is it me, or the amount of posts calling to get someone cancelled subsided?
    - alharith 7y ago
      Are you kidding me? Look at the current hash tags on twitter. Miserable people never stop.
    - Waterluvian 7y ago
      The canary I'm watching is the whole "Chinese" or "Wuhan" vs. "COVID" virus naming issue. I think it is very clearly not the right time to point fingers. But when this is all past us, a post-mortem and finger pointing is probably warranted. I don't think we need to resort to name calling, but I'm curious to see how much people bend over backwards to absolve China of responsibility.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        I think the most evenhanded answer would be to use the correct names (SARS-CoV-2 for the virus, Sars 2 for short, COVID-19 for the disease, Covid for short) while freely reminding people that China's initial cover-up was a necessary condition for the present global crisis.
        zaat 7y ago
        While these are all correct and proper, everyone I know is on first terms with it and so we all call the virus and the disease Corona.
        SCHiM 7y ago
        While I think that's a valid point to make. My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response in the total state space. Hindsight and all that. I think a much more powerful complaint is pointing out that, despite numerous warnings, studies, SARS, and having successfully isolated the root cause of the SARS outbreak (Civets). Only four months later these animals were back on the menu. The government made a rational choice to allow the conditions for the current situation to exist. The whole world is paying the price for this rational, prolonged and often pointed out mistake. That, I think, is a complaint we can lay wholly on the government.
        twomoretime 7y ago
        >My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response You can fault an authoritarian, oppressive regime for covering up the virus and suppressing whistleblowers. Now the world is paying for the CCP's SOP.
  - sdegutis 7y ago
    Explains the “playing the straight man” story recently in another thread.
  - cheez 7y ago
    Is this going to go away with the virus?
- gowld 7y ago
  Often a valid tangentialy comment gets rightly downvoted simply because its current vote total puts it higher on the page than more relevant comments.
- brlewis 7y ago
  Don't read anything into downvoting, especially soon after your comment is posted. Give it time to settle out.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

This gives me a cert warning, but it quotes something in a way that implies that may have been sort of the formal designation: Nurses Corps (female) https://history.amedd.army.mil/ANCWebsite/articles/malenurses.html https://history.amedd.army.mil/ANCWebsite/articles/malenurse... I've googled around a bit and when Florence Nightingale did her thing, it was mostly male nurses in the military. By early 1900s, this had changed, at least in the US, and most nurses were female.

Insanity 7y ago
Thanks, I suppose that might have been why indeed!

jiveturkey 7y ago

Is he referring to the ward-master? Which maybe is more often male?