Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittman 32
for injured men. mere used to be so many railroad En g& hurt; have
their foot cut open and so forth. They were hurt badly.
Q. How about the coal miners, too?
A. Well, I don't remmber that being inportant. Then thal; hall only ran
back to a little yard back here. They had a tent out there where they'd
put a TB [tuberculosis] patient. I don't ~mf3mber any ot&r kind of patient
being there. Then this hall ran half a block; no, not quibe. I'm trying to
think. The wards were about six beds and I don't think thpm were more
than two wards in the whole place. Most of them were priv@te, private rooms.
Very small on the north side, little rooms. But oh, you t so attached to
the patients, you bow. And one nurse did the whole th at night while
she was on duty; twelve hows with that hour off. You dnrt go if they
were too busy.
Q. How would they call the nurses?
A. I donlt how. I think we just had to get up. A l m c/Locks and things.
Q. No, I meant how would a patient call the nurse?
A. Oh, they had a bell on a wire or cod to their bed fropl the wall and
they just pressed the button. You had to leave it where tpey could get it,
you see.
I
Q. Was it an electric bell like they have today? 1
A. Yes, the si-1 was out in the hall, these crosshalls, and the register
was there as to which room it wm. And you hurried to get to them; it's
like Funning, (refers to earlier job) . (la@ter) But whep you had a very
sick patient-now, of course, an anesthetized patient comipg back to the
room, one nurse had to sit right there, then afterwhile, got so the
family could call you. If they couldn't, then you kept you just kept
watch .
Then when you're an night duty, you get sleepy somtimes w en it's so quiet.
I 've sat down to record what had been done and pen woul k go whwrq?. (gestms)
But you overcom that, too. You do everything. Nbwadays, one
nurse gives the medicine and one nurse does this and anotlq~ does this and
all the way around. Now that isnlt as friendly as having pne nurse do everything
for you. You had four or five patients and your bathing had to be
done. You didn't bathe every day. I
Now at Johns Hopkins, when I had post paduate work theb, there was a
bath every day and you had a whole line. One nurse would bay to me, "You're
giving a very good bath. "They don't do like that. " I sad, "What do they
do?'' 'Well, you just wash face and their hands and their feet." Well,
nevertheless, I kept on always late, because I fid a thorough job .
Six patients I'd have
Q. Now this is in Johns ~o~kinb'?