Public H ealtli and Social Welfare Work
1 I, it had reached a total of 115. Few nurses could be secured in those clays and many of those who offered to help proved worse than useless. Volunteer helpers, persons who had nursed relatives in previous epidemics, turned out to be the most useful. Men helpers proved invaluable with delirious patients. The three Sisters multiplied themselves through systematic routine. This was their baptism of blood. They worked in shifts day and night, their cheerful smile and words of comfort being the constant ray of hope that sustained the doomed patients. What this meant to the panic-stricken victims, no human m·ortal can tell. By the middle of August the City Hospital and the Charity Hospital were filled to capacity, yet hundreds were dying at home for lack of care. The strain proved too great for human endurance. Mother Blandine fell ill with the disease on August I 5 and in spite of the solicitous care of Sister Joseph, died three days later. Sister Ange took sick about the same time, but she fortunately recovered. Under the circumstances, Sister Joseph had to assume the responsibilities of Mother Superior. In the midst of the increasing fury of the epidemic the finances of Charity Hospital needed more attention than ever, but Mother Joseph could not look after the dying and attend also to the business aspects of the hospital. The Howard Association, a private mutual aid society that functioned in times of epidemics, advanced the sisters $150.00 on August 16. Father Chamdabut then secured the volunteer services of James P. Nash, a former business school director of pre-,var days. The new administrator made an eloquent and touching appeal for the supplies most needed, since everything used by patients who died had to he burned. He addressed himself to the people of Galveston in general and to the "solubrious cities, towns and hamlets" afar, safe from the influence of the epidemic. The response was liberal and prompt. Dona- tions of money, clothing and food came from far and near and the hos- pital was enabled to continue its battle against the deadly enemy. Two doctors died during the third week in August, and Doctor Nagle lost his son Stephen. Not until after September rs did the dreadful epidemic begin to abate. During the last ten days of September only eighteen patients were ad- mitted, seventeen were discharged as cured, and only thirty remained in the hospital. One patient died in the hospital during those last ten days. The yellow killer lingered in Galveston a while longer until a cold norther's chill drove the epidemic away forever. By a strange coincidence, yellow
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