“My first introduction to a hospital ward . . . I was ushered into a large bright airy room, the pretty white-curtained beds, with their strip of bright carpet beside each bed, and in almost every window pretty flowing plants gave the room a most cheerful and homelike appearance.  And yet as I soon learned and saw, there was suffering in almost every form within those four walls.” 

Miss Sturtevant, MGH Nurse 1862-1894