An inquest was held on Monday at Guy's Hospital on
the body of Louisa Morgan, a young married woman, (sick of hysteria and consumption, whose death had been, in the opinion of the medical staff, either caused or accelerated by the impro- per treatment to which she had been subjected by one of the nurses, of the name of Ingle, who had taken her—roughly, as was alleged—to the bath, for the purpose of cleansing her, kept her for some time in cold water till the hot was turned on, and left her in the bath for a time alleged to be altogether nearly an hour and a half. A verdict of manslaughter against the nurse was returned, and, so far as a preliminary inquiry went, both rough treatment, resulting in bruises, and very culpable negligence as to the nature of the ease,—the nurse appearing quite ignorant of any consumptive symptoms in the patient,—appeared to be provision- ally established. Dr. Pavey gave a polemical turn to his evidence, by saying, after explaining that a bath for the purpose of merely cleansing the body might be given on the discretion of the ward- sister without medical authority, but that no prolonged bath for the purpose of medical treatment could be so given,—" But nurses have lately undertaken to do things upon their own responsibility which the medical staff disapproved of and have strongly protested against to the Governing Body of the hos- pital, as being fraught with danger." In this case, however, the Sister of the ward—who is one of the old staff, which the medical men of the hospital are holding up as a bright con- trast to the new Sisters—had given permission for a cleansing bath, and had, by her own account, failed to enforce caution and tenderness on the nurse, or, indeed, to draw her attention at all to the nature of the case. If the inquest proves anything bearing on the controiersy, it proves that at least not all the old Sisters are so strict as they should be in their superin- tendence.
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