Quarterly of the 
Henry Street 
VISITING NURSE SERVICE 
Executive Offices 99 PARK AVENUE New York City 
VOL. I 
MARCH 1930 
No. i 
DINNER IS HELD TO PLAN 
SPRING FINANCIAL CAMPAIGN 
Special Need for Increased Funds in 1930 Emphasized; 
Speakers Include Lillian D. Wald, John Erskine 
and Dr. Shirley W. Wynne 
kell, Dr. and Mrs. Minor C. Hill, Mrs. 
Frederick E. Humphreys, Mrs. Joseph Lili- 
enthal, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Mack, Mr. 
and Mrs. Henry E. Mattison, Mrs. Willis 
Gemmill Mitchell, Mr, and Mrs. Herbert 
Russell, Joseph Seligman, Mr. and Mrs. 
Konrad von llberg, Mrs. Schuyler Warren, 
Mrs. Thomas J. Watson, Dr. Gaylord S. 
White, Mr, and Mrs. Waring Wilson, Mr. 
and Mrs. Benjamin Wollman, 
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lee Austin, Mrs. 
Charles S. Brown, Jr., Mrs. Julius Ellinger, 
Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Fuller, Mr. and 
Mrs. Louis S. Gimbel, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. 
Howard Gillem, Mr. and Mrs. Broderick 
Haskell, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Harry Bellas 
Hess, Mr, and Mrs. Arthur I. Hoe, Mr. 
and Mrs. Charles Kellog, Mr. and Mrs. 
William McAlpin, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene 
Norton, Mr. and Mrs. John Russell, Mrs. 
William A. Saks, Mrs. Samuel Salvage, Mr. 
and Mrs. Edward S. Steinam, Mrs. Arthur 
Stem, Mrs. Gerard Swope, Mrs. Robert 
Turle, Mrs, Leopold Wallach, Mrs. War- 
ren N. Schuyler, Miss Gretchen Waterman. 
Members of Mrs. Davison’s committee, 
who were unable to attend the dinner, were: 
Mrs. Joseph F. Cullman, Jr., Mrs. Cleve- 
land E. Dodge, Mrs. Halstead Freeman, 
Mrs. John L, Loeb, Mrs. William H. Post, 
Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff, Mrs. Arthur Schulte. 
FIELD VISIT MADE 
BY DR. EMERSON 
Dr. Haven Emerson, professor of public 
health, Columbia University, accompanied 
a nurse from Henry Street’s Washington 
Heights Center on her visits to patients not 
long ago. 
In the two hours and a half the excursion 
covered, six cases were visited. Dr. Emer- 
son was particularly struck with the econ- 
omy of time which marked the nurse’s 
routine. “She knows almost to the minute 
how long a certain type of call will take,” 
stated Dr, Emerson, “and is able to schedule 
her day with reference to the location of 
visits accurately in advance. Henry Street 
nurses average eight calls a day. Every pro- 
cedure, each motion, is planned and rou- 
tined with the greatest expedition compat- 
ible with skill and wise attention for the 
patients’ needs.” 
Plans for a spring campaign to finance 
the work of the Visiting Nurse Association 
have been under way for some time, culmi- 
nating in a dinner at the Colony Club 
Wednesday evening, March 12, given by 
Mrs. Henry P. Davison and the Board of 
Directors. Mrs. Davison has accepted the 
chairmanship of the campaign. Charles C. 
Rnrlingham was to preside at the dinner. 
All members of the Campaign Committee 
are undertaking to raise the salary of one 
nurse—$1,725—or as large a part of this 
sum as possible, either through direct appeal 
or by letter. Letters may be sent personally 
by the member, or by the administrative 
office of the nursing service, over the com- 
mittee member’s signature. The object of 
the dinner was to discuss plans and arouse 
interest, with solicitation of money on the 
occasion entirely absent. 
Special speakers on the program included 
Lillian D. Wald, who founded the Henry 
Street Visiting Nurse Service 37 years ago, 
John Erskine and Dr. Shirley W. Wynne, 
Health Commissioner of New York City. 
Funds are urgently needed, not only to 
meet the budget for the current year, but to 
permit important expansion. Work in the 
field demands the addition of 25 nurses. 
Additional resources are also required to 
extend the 24-hour maternity delivery ser- 
vice into other sections. 
The nursing service has a regular charge 
per visit which is $1.15. This sum is adapted 
to the means of the patient, so that those 
unable to meet the full price may pay what 
they can. Many of the patients who for- 
merly were in a financial condition to defray 
this expense are now unable to do so, but the 
nursing care must be rendered, nevertheless. 
The unemployment situation, which has 
caused considerable concern generally and 
has been the subject of items in the daily 
press from time to time, has particularly 
affected the families which Henry Street 
Visiting Nurse Service is unusually well 
qualified to serve. 
Among those accepting invitations to the 
dinner were: Mr. and Mrs. Louis Abrons, 
Mrs. Charles Appleton, Mr. and Mrs. 
Grosvenor Atterbury, Mrs. Francis C. Bar- 
low, Mrs. Edward Fales Coward, Mr. and 
Mrs. Louis Dannenbaum, Ellamayre Failor, 
Mrs, L. M. C. Flower, Mr. and Mrs. 
William Gallowhur, Mr. and Mrs. Her- 
man Gettner, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Folgar 
Gardner, Mrs. Augustus Hand, Mr. and 
Mrs. Donald P. Hart, Mrs. W. N. Has- 
Mrs. Henry P. Davison, Chairman of the 
Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service 
Financial Campaign. 2 
Quarterly of the HENRY STREET VISITING NURSE SERVICE 
Quarterly of the 
HENRY STREET 
VISITING NURSE SERVICE 
Executive Offices 
99 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 
FELIX M. WARBURG IS HONORED 
RECEIVES BETTER TIMES AWARD 
Health Commissioner Wynne Also Gets Medal 
for Distinguished Service 
Vol. I MARCH 1930 No. 1 
OFFICERS 
Felix M. Warburg, president of the 
Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, is one 
of the recipients of the fifth annual award 
of The Better Times’ medal for distin- 
guished service to the city of New York. 
The medal also was given to Dr, Shirley W. 
Wynne, health commissioner, and to the 
Regional Plan of New York and Its En- 
virons, the plan itself being an outstanding 
contribution, which could not be adequately 
recognized as the work of a single individual. 
The citation accompanying Mr. War- 
burg’s award reads in part: “To art, to 
mpsic, to education and to philanthropy he 
has brought his genius for organization, his 
inspired and practical imagination, his lucid 
quality of thought and his keen decisiveness 
of mind. 
“In the field of social welfare he has 
erected new guide-posts of usefulness for 
men of wealth and intelligence. He advo- 
cated and influenced, while a member of the 
board of education, the development of un- 
graded classes now a component part of the 
school system in this and other cities. By 
his power of organization and through the 
confidence reposed in him by the Jewish 
community he brought order and efficiency 
to the great body of Jewish charities in the 
city. He was the first president of the Fed- 
eration for the Support of Jewish Philan- 
thropic Societies in New York and remains 
an active and devoted member of its direc- 
torate. He was one of the little group of 
far-sighted men who brought about the 
formation of the Welfare Council of New 
York City, and who are steadfastly sup- 
porting its program for more effective co- 
ordination of social resources. His gener- 
ous and sympathetic participation in the 
work of the nursing service of Henry Street 
Settlement, has been a powerful factor in 
the extension of that service to the sick and 
suffering of the city. 
“Mr. Warburg’s influence has penetrated 
far into the life of his generation. His race, 
his country, his city, all feel the quickening 
power of his personality. His full and 
ardent citizenship, his deep and practical 
sympathies, enrich humanity.” 
President 
Felix M. Warburg 
Chairman, 
Executive Committee 
Miss Lillian D. Wald 
Treasurer 
Janies H. Perkins 
Assistant Treasurer 
Miss Mabel Coleman 
Secretary 
Mrs. Stella Akulin Koenig 
John G. Agar 
George W. Alger 
Leo Arnslein 
Mrs. Hermann Biggs 
Henry Bruere 
Charles C. Burlingham 
Paul D. Cravath 
Mrs. Herbert Crowley 
William Darrach, M.D. 
Mrs. E. H. Herrmann 
Board of Directors 
Mrs. Henry G. Leach 
Herbert H. Lehman 
Mrs. Rita Wallach Morgenthau 
Mrs. Daniel O’Day 
James H. Perkins 
Hyman Schroeder 
Alfred E. Smith 
Arthur Stewart 
Miss Lillian D. Wald 
Felix M. Warburg 
Mrs. Montgomery Angell 
Mrs. Richard F. Bausman 
Mrs. William Bertles 
Mrs. Hermann Biggs 
Mrs. Charles S. Brown, Jr. 
Mrs. Gerard Fountain 
Miss Josephine Goldmark 
Mrs. Morris Hadley 
Mrs. Augustus Hand 
Miss Marian Holden 
Mrs. Joseph M. Levine 
Committee on Nursing 
Mrs. David M. Levy 
Mrs. Clarence Mack 
Mrs. Henry E. Mattison 
Mrs. William R. McAlpin 
Mrs. Daniel O’Day 
Miss Rebecca Shatz, R.N. 
Mrs. Edward Sleinam 
Miss Isabel Stewart 
Mrs. Gerard Swope 
Mrs. Paul Warburg 
Mrs. Benjamin F. Wollman 
Miss Lillian D. Wald, R.N., Chairman 
Miss Marguerite A. Wales, R.N., General Director of Nurses 
Miss Elizabeth J. Mackenzie, R.NAssociate Director of Nurses 
Dr. William Darrach, Chairman 
Dr. Haven Emerson 
Dr. Ralph W. Lobensline 
Dr. Charles Hendee Smith 
Dr. Ira S. Wile 
Dr. Linsly K. Williams 
Medical Advisory Committee 
Dr. Harry Aranow 
Bronx County Medical 
Society 
Dr. George L. Broclhead 
Medical Society of the 
County of N. Y. 
AMATEUR ADVICE 
A butcher advised an expectant mother 
to eat plenty of meat, and later she became 
dizzy and nauseated practically all the time, 
but did not trace the disorder to this cause. 
It remained for one of our nurses to point 
out what the correct diet should be, and 
now this woman is a regular attendant at 
the Mother’s Club. 
NEW SERVICE IS 
INSTALLED BY 
HENRY STREET 
A new type of service recently established 
aims to provide skilled nursing care for a 
short time on the occasion of the physician’s 
visit. This service was created after an 
analysis of conditions affecting those who 
are ill in their own homes disclosed a suffi- 
cient need to warrant it. 
The “appointment service’’ as the new 
plan has been called, is to be self-supporting, 
as its special character does not make it 
universal enough in application to be main- 
tained on the usual basis of $1.15 per visit, 
with the patient paying so much of this sum 
as his means may allow. It was foreseen 
that the long-established work would find 
an encroachment in the new policy unless its 
full cost were paid by the patient. 
Rates for the appointment service are: 
First hour (or part) $2.00 
Each succeeding 20 minutes 50 
Assisting at minor operations... 5.00 
Visits are from one to four hours in dura- 
tion, and can be made only between the 
hours of 8.30 A. M. and 5 P. M. It is not 
desired to include any cases except those 
which require highly trained care at a par- 
ticular hour. 
White House Conference 
The White House Conference on Child 
Health and Protection has enlisted the 
co-operation of two members of the board 
of directors of the Henry Street Visiting 
Nurse Service: Mrs. Hermann Biggs and 
Miss Lillian D. Wald, who are acting on 
the Committee on Child Care. Miss Mar- 
guerite A. Wales is a member of the com- 
mittee on pre-natal and maternal care. 
They have attended several important meet- 
ings in Chicago recently. 
Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service is 
deeply concerned with the subject matter of 
these important conferences. Child health 
and maternity problems comprise a large 
part of the daily work of nurses from our 
18 centers established in New York City. 
During four months, November to Febru- 
ary last, inclusive, this organization cared 
for 3,188 new baby cases, and within the 
same period, there were registered 2,984 
new ante-partum cases, and 1,171 new post- 
partum. Each succeeding year more women 
are coming to understand the need to pre- 
pare for motherhood with the skilled help 
of physician and nurse, as well as the greater 
safety to mother and child from nursing 
service during and after confinement. 
This opportunity to participate in con- 
ferences which are expected to awaken 
widespread interest in the subject, is wel- 
comed by Henry Street. 
HENRY STREET 
CENTERS 
Administrative Office 
99 Park Avenue 
New York City 
Section Address 
East Harlem Nursing & 
Health Service..-354 E. 116th St. 
Fordham 2828 Valentine Ave. 
Greenwich 294 W. 11th St. 
Hamilton 72 Market St. 
Henry 265 Henry St. 
Longacre 525 W. 47th St. 
Melrose 1160 Jackson Ave. 
Morningside 103 W. 110th St. 
Morrisania 320 E. 149th St. 
Murray Hill 325 E. 38th St. 
North Harlem 202 W. 136th St. 
79th Street 234 E. 79th St. 
Stuyvesant 233 E. 11th St. 
Tremont 2021 Arthur Ave. 
Union 243 E. 104th St. 
Washington Heights Medical 
Center, Room 205, 168th St. and 
Broadway 
Westchester: 2169 W’chester Ave. 
Gun Hill 700 E. 211th St. Quarterly of the HENRY STREET VISITING NURSE SERVICE 
3 
MENTAL PROBLEMS CALL FOR 
TACT AND SKILL OF NURSE 
Often She Has First Opportunity To Discover 
Them and Aid Preventive Work 
months. The barge, full of coal, will lie 
where it is until a large power plant nearby 
needs fuel. Water had to be brought by the 
husband from a hydrant some distance away, 
so that laundry and cleaning operations were 
limited. The children’s diet was composed 
chiefly of cereals; fresh milk was unknown, 
the powdered variety being substituted in 
small amounts. 
Here indeed was a crying demand both 
for direct care to the mother, and educa- 
tional work with the whole family. The 
parents were opposed to sending the chil- 
dren to school. They spoke of getting books 
and teaching them at home, but as neither 
of the parents enjoyed any schooling them- 
selves, except to a limited extent, there was 
not much of promise in the idea. The fam- 
ily was as primitive as if they lived in a 
remote mountain country, for they seldom 
saw anybody but their neighboring barge 
families, apparently in a similar condition of 
stunted development* With almost no con- 
tact between these people and the shore, the 
task of helping them to solve their problems 
became one requiring considerable time and 
patience. 
NURSING CENTER 
CO-OPERATES WITH 
HEALTH DEPARTMENT 
Recent announcement by Health Com- 
missioner Wynne that his department advo- 
cates the establishment throughout the city 
of*FTealth units, where official and unofficial 
activities may unite their efforts, is expected 
to add new impetus to developing centers 
such as Henry Street maintains in 79th 
Street. The health department’s baby sta- 
tion operates in the same building with the 
visiting nurse service, and advantage is 
taken of this means to reach many of the 
hundreds of mothers who come to the public 
baby station, and interesting them in such 
Henry Street activities as mothers’ clubs 
and the maternity delivery service. 
At 79th Street last year, 1,052 pre-school 
visits were recorded. Henry Street nurses 
followed up cases into their homes after the 
physicians’ examination. 
During the summer months last year, 300 
children were sent from this center to Camp 
Tappawinga, maintained by one of the di- 
rectors of the Henry Street Service near 
New Haven, Conn. A Henry Street nurse 
was in attendance there, and by this means 
the health habits of these children were 
supervised throughout the year. 
HENRY ST. IN FINLAND 
A Finnish nurse who received training at 
Henry Street for two years and then went 
to her native country and established a visit- 
ing nurse service at Helsingfors writes: “It 
was a long, hard pull, but going well now. 
I am sorry you cannot see my office with its 
visiting nurses, Henry Street bags and call 
slips, just like one of the New York Cen- 
ters.” 
“Husband is extremely talkative, and un- 
able to keep a job. Thinks everyone is 
against him. Not a nursing case — dis- 
missed.” 
This notation was made by a nurse sev- 
eral years ago. Today the case would not 
be dismissed. Since the development of 
mental hygiene work in the nursing field, 
such instances serve as opportunities for im- 
portant service. 
A mental hygiene program has been a 
part of activities of the Henry Street Vis- 
iting Nurse Service since April, 1927. One- 
hour conferences have been conducted every 
two weeks in each one of the eighteen cen- 
ters under the direction of a trained psychi- 
atric worker. A lecture is given by this 
supervisor, which is followed by questions 
and discussion on the part of the staff. 
Problems encountered by the nurses in their 
daily work are discussed. 
It is interesting to note that the shelves 
of the library at nursing headquarters which 
house volumes on mental hygiene are almost 
always quite empty, and the books them- 
selves as they come back and are given out 
again show the evidences of constant use. „ 
In all instances the nurse interested in a 
case has an individual conference with the 
supervisor regarding the best way to handle 
it. Knowledge of the various New York 
clinics which accept psychiatric cases and 
children’s behavior problems is an impor- 
tant part of the nurse’s equipment. It is 
essential for her to distinguish the type of 
problem she can help solve from the serious 
one which calls for skilled study and treat- 
ment in a psychiatric clinic. 
The nurse has proved her ability to 
handle many of the less serious difficulties 
involving habit training and correction. She 
lias an unsurpassed opportunity during her 
visits to observe the behavior of the two- 
year-old youngster, as well as the manner- 
isms of the five-year-old. The nurse’s con- 
tact is direct, and occurs when children are 
of an age when habits are forming that may 
mean future trouble. 
A sympathetic, intelligent visiting nurse 
often irons out difficulties at home before 
Teaching a Mother How to Wash the Baby 
they become cases for clinics, if she has the 
insight to recognize early danger signals 
and the tact to manage the personality prob- 
lems always involved. 
In helping a family to better their condi- 
tion of health, it has come to be recognized 
that it is impossible to draw a clear line be- 
tween mental and physical well-being. The 
nurse feels she is only half doing her job if 
she takes care of one aspect of health and 
neglects the other. 
NURSING IN PNEUMONIA 
Physicians are agreed in emphasizing the 
value of nursing service in cases of pneu- 
monia. Here, especially, may the patient’s 
life depend on the kind of care which is 
available throughout the period of illness. 
It is vitally important that orders of the 
physician be carried out to the letter. Mem- 
bers of the family attending the patient 
may be taught the practical details of bed- 
side nursing best by watching a visiting nurse 
actually perform them, and are thus able 
to provide more adequate care in her absence 
than could otherwise be possible. Henry 
Street visiting nurses attended 509 cases of 
pneumonia in the four months immediately 
preceding March 1, 1930. 
VISITS BARGE FAMILY 
Two pale little children living with their 
parents on a coal barge, with never a chance 
to get air and sunshine on deck because of 
the danger of falling overboard—a father 
arguing loudly with the mother who lay in 
a dark bunk with her newborn baby—what 
a scene confronted the Henry Street nurse! 
To find the patient she had traversed a 
long street lined with factories and ware- 
houses, jumped from the pier at low tide 
down to the first barge alongside, and made 
her way over intervening boats until she 
reached the “home” which boasted of such 
pets as two dirty white dogs and two brown 
pigeons in a cage. 
The mother had not been on shore in six 4 
Quarterly of the HENRY STREET VISITING NURSE SERVICE 
INDIFFERENCE CHALLENGES 
RESOURCES OF NURSES 
Indifferent Attitude Changed By Patience and Tact 
— or Luck May Play a Part 
LARGE SHARE IN 
“T.A.T.” WORK 
The campaign conducted by Health 
Commissioner Shirley W. Wynne for the 
immunization of children against diph- 
theria has received the hearty co-operation 
of many voluntary organizations through- 
out the city. For the period from January 1 
to November 1, 1929, 13,100 children were 
immunized by such agencies, according to 
the Children’s Welfare Federation. Of 
these, 3,126 were the result of efforts of the 
Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service—al- 
most a quarter of the total. 
AFTER MANY YEARS 
The memory of service rendered is not 
easily effaced, A card was received by one 
of the Henry Street nurses during the last 
holidays which read: 
“This message is from one to whom you 
were very kind twenty-three years ago, and 
who has never forgotten you. I had two 
children and a sick husband whom you 
placed in a hospital. Today my family is 
grown up and all are married. I own two 
houses and am well and happy, and many 
times I sing to my grandchildren the song 
you used to sing, ‘Sail, baby, sail.’ ” 
How to break down the barrier of su- 
perstition which stands in the way of public 
health teaching is often a difficult problem. 
Often the order of the words “guide, 
counselor and friend” needs to be reversed. 
The nurse must become “friend” before 
she can become “counselor” or “guide.” 
Even a ridiculous incident may engender 
a feeling of confidence. A colored woman 
under the care of a nurse from the Wash- 
ington Heights Center could not be induced 
to give her children cod liver oil, or to make 
separate sleeping arrangements for them. 
As she was an expectant mother, the nurse 
was bending every effort to prepare her, but 
with little success. 
One day the patient insisted there was no 
need to take any measures of preparation 
because the baby was not due for ten days, 
and she also volunteered the definite infor- 
mation that it was to be a girl. The nurse 
jocularly replied that the baby would arrive 
that very night, and that it would be a boy. 
And so, strangely, it turned out. 
From that time on not a word of sug- 
gestion from the nurse went unheeded. Her 
directions were followed implicitly and with 
religious zeal. 
Sometimes indifference is overcome only 
when the emotional factor intervenes. A 
woman who recently arrived in this country 
from Europe could not fathom the “strange 
proceedings” suggested by the nurse as a 
part of pre-natal care. Why should she con- 
sult a doctor when it was not done in her 
own country? Again, after the baby ar- 
rived, its body plainly showed the lack of 
bathing. At the age of six weeks the baby 
became ill with lobar pneumonia, and the 
doctor did not give the family much hope 
for recovery. The nurse spent much time 
on the case, followed the doctor’s orders 
carefully, and in the end the baby recovered. 
The mother’s gratitude and appreciation 
of the nurse’s care during this period com- 
pletely changed her attitude. She became 
willing to follow instructions in every de- 
tail, was able to give a perfect demonstra- 
tion bath, regularly kept the baby’s tem- 
perature, and socii was recording its weight 
herself in a book kept for the purpose. 
99 PARK AVENUE 
N EW YORK CITY 
Sec. 435X P. L & R. 
U. S. POSTAGE 
1c Paid 
New York. N. Y. 
Permit No. 4463