This portrait traces the missionary career of Mary Legh (1857-1941), who came to Japan at the age of fifty to aid sufferers of leprosy.

Sister Ethel McCaul was one of only two specialist nurses to accompany surgeon Frederick Treves to the South African War. Following this experience she became an articulate critic of military medical reform, and saw Japanese systems as a blueprint for change. Experience as a nurse in Meiji era Japan allowed her to reveal aspects of the Japanese system that were in advance of Imperial Britain, and this portrait charts her role in advocating links with Edwardian Britain and Meiji era Japan.

In the field of military nursing, by the first years of the twentieth century Japan had overtaken Britain. This essay suggests that the career of pioneer nurse Yamamoto Yao (1875-1955) illustrates Japanese achievements, and details the significant role of the Japanese Red Cross in Anglo-Japanese relations during the First World War.