Author Clarification of Edith Cavell Article

Abstract

Editor's Note: In response to a reader's questions, Terri Arthur, author of the article about Edith Cavell (February 2006), provides some clarification. Author's Note: The description of the article on Edith Cavell (February 2006) that appeared in the table of contents was in error when it mentioned Nazis; there were no Nazis in World War I. That description was written by a member of the JEN editorial staff, not by the author of the article. Also, Ms. Cavell did grow up in the late 19th century, not the 18th century as noted on page 31. The need to condense information when writing an article for a journal may have caused some confusion about the sequence of events regarding the surgeon's wife who was killed on the Lusitania. Fundraising was a priority from the time Miss Cavell's Training School for Nurses on the rue de la Culture in Ixelles, Brussels was opened in September 1907 until August 20, 1914, when the Germans marched into Belgium and occupied her school and the associated Clinique. Supporters like Ms. Marie Depage, the surgeon's wife, knew that funds still would be necessary when the war was over. She sailed to America to raise money for the school and hospital but died when the Lusitania sank under German fire on May 17, 1915. Ms. Cavell was shot on October 12, 1915. The soldiers for whom Edith Cavell provided care were not victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic. They were infected in one of the waves of influenza that occurred before and leading up to that infamous Spanish Flu pandemic in which 20 million persons died. It is a pleasure to know that this reader read my article carefully and understands the historic value of this unusual nurse.