You are
misled if you imagine that the heading "Cases" has exhausted the
possibilities which appeared to be latent in that noun; for, in addition
to the ten unqualified "Cases" there are seven more, defined as "Cases,
slip." Can you wonder that the orderly, presented with a bin-full of
confused and crumpled objects ready for the wash, and told to count them
and enter their numbers in the appointed columns, occasionally made a
wrong guess? Then there were eight sorts of "Cloths"--tablecloth,
tray-cloth, distinctive cloth, and so forth. (To how many lay minds does
"distinctive cloth" convey any meaning?) Counterpanes you would think to
be obvious enough; but that remarkable compilation, the _Check Book for
Hospital Linen_ ("Printed for H.M. Stationery Office...." etc.),
recognises four varieties. It also allows for four varieties of sheets,
four of aprons and four of trousers. Of towels it knows six.
Each ward has a certain stock of linen in its cupboard. That stock can
only be kept at the proper level by strict barter of a soiled object for
a clean duplicate of the same object. As there are three hundred and
sixty-five days in the year on which this transaction occurs, and sixty
wards' bundles of linen to be dealt with by both the Dirty Linen
Department and the Clean Linen Department on each of those days, it is
clear that exactitude in the filling-in of the form aforementioned
becomes an affair of almost nightmare importance.
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