It is short-sighted to regard women’s nursing as a proof of their compassion, because it indicates the precise opposite. A man would never be able to watch the torments of the sick. He would be so worn down by suffering with them that he would be totally unable to care for them. If one observes female nurses one is astonished to see how calm and “gentle” they remain, even when faced with the most terrible spasms of the dying, and this is just as well, because men, who cannot stand pain and death, would make bad nurses. A man would want to alleviate the agony, delay death, in a word, help. Where no help is possible he has no place: that is where nursing comes into its own, and for nursing only women are suitable
