Northern Nurse

Northern Nurse is a pioneer story — with a decided difference. Elliott Merrick’s account of his wife’s work as a nurse in Labrador is written with charm, humor, and no self-consciousness — attributes unusual in a pioneer book.

If the opening chapters about the hospital at Indian Harbor drag a little, the rest of the book gallops with a zest which leaves the reader breathless. The Indian Harbor picture is interesting and delightful, but not gripping, except for one or two high points. One is somewhat astonished that young Doctor Jeff, who, has interned at Johns Hopkins and the Massachusetts General, should go into a serious tailspin about the amputation of a patient’s finger.

But when Miss Austen finds herself at North West River for the winter, with no doctor whatever, and the health of all the community left in her firm young hands, then the book takes hold.

Kate Austen battled with epidemics, pulled teeth, healed burns and broken legs, delivered babies. There was even a case of strangulated hernia; the patient was obviously dying, and Miss Austen, not daring to attempt an operation, fled to a book on surgery, only to learn that her one chance of saving the patient — by manual reduction — was ' now considered obsolete and dangerous and should never under any circumstances be practiced.’ But she did try it, and she saved him. She went to her patients by dog team, toiling through drifts and blizzards; she sweated in steamy kitchens; she froze in Indian encampments —always loving the land, the people, the winter, and her work. In short, Kate Austen had the time of her life, and her husband has written a warm and lovely book. H. D. B.