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Nurses
Since the Crimean War (1854-6), and the influence of Florence Nightingale, Britain's
dominions benefitted from war nursing. It was Nightingale who first organized
battle nurses. Her innovation was embraced 30 years later in Canada. In 1885,
when Canadian troops took on the Metis in the North-West Rebellion, Nursing Sisters,
as the nurses were called, joined troops at the front line. It soon became a
tradition of care. During the Boer War, eight Nursing Sisters worked alongside
more than 8,000 soldiers. In the heat and unsanitary conditions of the South
African conflict almost twice as many soldiers died from illness and infection
as from battle. By the time Canada entered the Great War there were only five
Permanent Force nurses and 57 reservists. By 1917, the Canadian Nursing Service
included 2,030 nurses, 90 per cent of them overseas.
Many of the nurses worked in innovative Casualty Clearing Stations. These
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