Clara Barton arrives in London as a dignitary after the civil war, and sits down to discuss her experiences with Florence Nightingale, about the training of nurses. Nightingale greets Barton, and they begin with a little bit of small talk. "Ms. Barton," Nightingale begins, "I have heard that you were a nurse once, in your civil war."
"Well," Barton replied, "there was nothing civil about it. It was absolutely horrific. But we did our best. The men fight, and they commit untold atrocities unto each other, and all we can do is to help. I was on the right side of that war."
"Is there a right side to war? As I'm sure you know, I was in the Crimea and it was especially awful there. There was no…there was no sanitation. I tried to care for the wounded, but there was so much disease and it just ripped through our camp. I think more soldiers died off the battlefield than on it."
"It is difficult. I wish I could be in a position to do something about it. Nobody wants to see these stupid, endless conflicts, but the men make the decisions and they decide to kill each other."
"Don't get me started, Ms. Barton. Don't get me started. I have done many, many things. I have taken the lessons that I learned in Balaklava and started to formalize them to form a coherent vision of nurse training. But this is all I can do. I cannot become...
We must do what we can."
"Sometimes, we cannot do even that. When the civil war broke out, I wanted to take the job of two men, so that two could go. They would not even accept that; no sacrifice from a woman. It would have insulted them so much. But enough about that. I wanted to talk to you about this nursing education of yours."
"It does what you would expect a woman to do -- to make it egalitarian. With training, everybody could be helped. That's simple, to me, and humane. People with medical needs can be attended to, because we are able to train nurses in such a number that everybody can receive the nursing help they need."
"That would be wonderful, Ms. Nightingale. I have acted as a nurse since I was a child -- it's a role they insist women are good for -- but I can see that with proper training nursing can be for everybody. It is the morally right and just thing to do. It is also something I think that we as women need to do. We can change the world with the roles we are allowed to have. I think we should have better roles, more status -- maybe then we wouldn't need such stupid wars at all -- but working within what we do have, we can change the world."
"Exactly, Ms. Barton. My idea is that if we are going to be nurses -- told we cannot do anything…
