<P> Canadian women volunteering to serve overseas as nurses overwhelmed the army with applications . A total of 3,141 Canadian "nursing sisters" served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and 2,504 of those served overseas in England, France and the Eastern Mediterranean at Gallipoli, Alexandria and Salonika . By the end of the First World War, 46 Canadian Nursing Sisters had died In addition to these nurses serving overseas with the military, others volunteered and paid their own way over with organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross, the Victorian Order of Nurses, and St. John Ambulance . The sacrifices made by these nurses during the War in fact gave a boost to the women's suffrage movement in many of the countries that fought in the war . The Canadian Army nursing sisters were among the first women in the world to win the right to vote in a federal election; the Military Voters Act of 1917 extended the vote to women in the service such as Nursing Sisters . </P> <P> Australian nurses served in the war as part of the Australian General Hospital . Australia established two hospitals at Lemnos and Heliopolis Islands to support the Dardanelles campaign at Gallipoli . Nursing recruitment was sporadic, with some reserve nurses sent with the advance parties to set up the transport ship HMAS Gascoyne while others simply fronted to Barracks and were accepted, while still others were expected to pay for their passage in steerage . Australian nurses from this period became known as "grey ghosts" because of their drab uniforms with starched collar and cuffs . </P> <P> During the course of the war, Australian nurses were granted their own administration rather than working under medical officers . Australian Nurses hold the record for the maximum number of triage cases processed by a casualty station in a twenty - four - hour period during the battle of Passchendale . Their work routinely included administering ether during haemostatic surgery and managing and training medical assistants (orderlies). </P> <P> Some 560 Australian army nurses served in India during the war, where they had to overcome a debilitating climate, outbreaks of disease, insufficient numbers, overwork and hostile British Army officers . </P>

Historical origins of nursing in australia is traced to the early part of the