Books: Nurse's Chronicle

FOR DEAR LIFE—Belinda Jelliffe—Scribner ($2.75).

For most laymen, the routine activities of the staff of a big hospital are shrouded in sanitary mystery. The stories concerning them are usually grim, sometimes Rabelaisian, seldom sensible. Last week the sensible, matter-of-fact autobiographical chronicle of a onetime nurse gave a good, clear picture of the day-to-day work and training involved. Written by the wife of Psychiatrist Smith Ely Jelliffe, For Dear Life is an unpretentious book, makes up in honesty what it lacks in literary finish.

Belinda Dan (Dobson) was born in a barn near Carleton, N....