By Terri Arthur
One person CAN make a difference. Edith Cavell has been likened to Florence Nightingale in her commitment to train nurses, and especially in her work in treating wartime casualties. As a daughter of a clergyman, Edith felt a call to serve, and left her home in Norfolk to train at the London hospital in the 1890,s when nursing was just beginning to be recognized as a career requiring training and employing scientific techniques - and not just a chore relegated to untrained nuns and charwomen. After working in several settings in England, Edith is invited to go to Brussels and set up that country's first nursing school. Her serious commitment - and her fluency in French - win the respect of the local doctor and the first few students arrive for training. It's not long, however, before Germany invades neutral Brussels and German soldiers take control of the city. When wounded British soldiers arrive at the hospital, Edith is faced to make a decision between treating "the enemy" [of the Germans] or turning them over to German authorities. She opts to help them, the first of many British soldiers whom she nurses back to health and helps escape (through her contacts) across the border into the Netherlands. Although Edith and her staff are very careful, a German spy infiltrates the hospital and arrests Edith for helping the enemy. Shockingly, Edith is convicted and, after a sham trial, executed, causing an international outrage that would have lasting repercussions.
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