Metropolitan Asylums Board,Bronze third prize medal.Eastern Fever Hospital

A rare bronze Nurses Third prize medal awarded by the Metropolitan Asylums Board .The medal is suspended from a bronze bar brooch on an original blue silk ribbon The face bears the arms of the MAB which had been granted in 1914.
The shield featured a red cross on white: St George's Cross but also the "red cross" of medicine and ambulance work. On this was placed a golden staff of Aesculapius, legendary founder of medicine. The shield was edged with a black bordure or border. The crest showed the figure of St Luke rising from a celestial crown. The saint had appeared on the board's seal. The supporters were an eagle for "health and strength" and a chained dragon symbolising "disease held in check". About the eagle's neck was a collar composed of red and white roses. This was a reference to the Wars of the Roses which, according to Shakespeare, began in the Temple Gardens adjacent to the board's headquarters.
The Latin motto: Miseris succurrere disco or "I learn to succour the distressed", was taken from Virgil's Aeneid.
The rear has Metropolitan Asylum Boards Fever Hospitals around the edge, within this is Probationer Nurses Examination and Work. To the centre it is named for Third prize Ethel M Atkins April 1916. This appears to be Ethel Mary Atkins who is shown on the GNC Register as having trained at the Eastern Fever Hospital from 1915-1917. Height medal 37mm drop 77mm Condition is very good.
The MAB which was set up in 1867 was responsible for the organisation and provision for the delivery of health care, especially fever hospitals around much of the London area.They awarded three grades of prizes for nurses training in the Fever Hospitals, all of which are extremely rare,These exist in Gold,silver and bronze.

Code: 52776