Volume I Part 15 (1/2)
At six o'clock yesterday ered on deck to look at the plains of Troy, the tomb of Achilles, the mouths of the Scamander, the little harbour of Tenedos, bethich and the alley torn away, blustering, creaking, shrieking, storhosts of the Trojans answered h which the old Gods, nevertheless, peered down from the hill of Ida upon their old plain My enthusiash was undiminished by wind and wave
We made the castles of Europe and Asia (Dardanelles) by eleven, but also reached Constantinople this h which the Sophia, Sulieman, the Seven Towers, the walls, and the Golden Horn looked like a bad daguerrotype washed out
We have not yet heard what the Embassy or Military Hospital have done for us, nor received our orders
Bad news from Balaclava You will hear the areck of our poor cavalry, 400 wounded, arriving _at this moment_ for us to nurse We have just built another hospital at the Dardanelles
You ant to know about our crew One has turned out ill, others will do
(_Later_) Just starting for Scutari We are to be housed in the Hospital this very afternoon Everybody is most kind The fresh wounded are, I believe, to be placed under our care They are landing theale refers, was to be the chief scene of her labours for the next six months, and a few particulars about it and other hospitals, in which the nursing was under her superintendence, ible The principal hospitals of the British ar the Crimean War--four in nuhbourhood), the suburb of mournful beauty which looks across to Constantinople from the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus
The first hospital to be established was in the Turkish Military Hospital This was made over to the British in May 1854, and was called by thened for a hospital, and being given up to the English partially fitted, it rote Miss Nightingale, ”reduced to good order early, by the unwearied efforts of the first-class Staff Surgeon in introducing a good working system It was then maintained in excellent condition till the close of the war”[83] It had accommodation for 1000 patients, but the Battle of the Aler accommodation would be wanted
[83] _Statement_, p 13 _n_
North of the General Hospital, and near to the famous Turkish cereat yellow building with square towers at each angle This building was made over to the British for use as a hospital after the Battle of the Alma, and by them was always called _The Barrack Hospital_ This is the hospital in which Miss Nightingale and her band of female nurses were first established, and in which she herself had her headquarters throughout her stay at Scutari
It is built on rising ground, in a beautiful situation, looking over the Sea of Marmora on one side, towards the Princes' Islands on another, and towards Constantinople and up the Bosphorus on a third ”I have not been out of the Hospital Walls yet,” wrote Miss Nightingale ten days after her arrival, ”but the most beautiful view in all the world, I believe, lies outside” Her quarters were in the north-west tower, on the left of the Main Guard (or principal entrance) There was a large kitchen or storeroom, of which we shall hear more presently, and out of it on either side various other rooe and the courier slept in one se in another The nurses slept in other rooale and her nurses was about equal to that allotted to three medical officers and their servants, or to that occupied by the Commandant ”This was done,” she explained, ”in order to make no pressure for room on an already overcrowded hospital It could not have been done with justice to the woale later taken a house in Scutari at private expense, to which every nurse attacked with fever was removed”[84] The quarters were as uncohtingale, ”our roof is torn off, or the s are blown in, and we are under water for the night” The Hospital was infested also with rodents and ver other new accomplishhtingale became an expert rat-killer This skill was afterwards called into use at Balaclava In the spring of 1856, one of the nuns whom she had taken with her to the Crierous attack of fever Miss Nightingale nursed the case; and one night, while watching by the sick-bed, she saw a large rat upon the rafters over the Sister's head; she succeeded in knocking it down and killing it, without disturbing the patient[85] The condition of physical disco, she had to do her work, should be re the measure of her fortitude and devotion[86]
[84] _Notes_ (Bibliography A, No 8), sec iii p xxxiii
[85] _Grant_, p 174
[86] For a lively description of like discomforts endured by her staff, see _Eastern Hospitals_, vol i pp 91-94
The maximum number of patients accommodated at any one time (Dec 23, 1854) in the Barrack Hospital was 2434 It was half-an-hour's walk from the General Hospital, and an invalided soldier records that he used to accoale froht her hohts, across the barren common which lay between them
Farther south of the General Hospital, in the quarter of Haidar Pasha, as known as _The Palace Hospital_, consisting of various buildings belonging to the Sultan's Summer Palace These were occupied as a hospital in January 1855 Miss Nightingale had no responsibility here; but in the su of sick officers, quartered in one of these buildings, was placed under the superintendence of Mrs Willoughby Moore, theof an officer who had died a noble death in the war, and four feland
Finally, there were hospitals at _Koulali_, four or five miles farther north, upon the same Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus These hospitals were opened in Decehtingale's supervision, but she was presently relieved of it (p
193 _n_) The hospitals were broken up in Nove establishment, a portion went hoale into the hospitals at Scutari
There were also five hospitals in the Crimea, but particulars of these htingale upon her expeditions to the front For the nursing in the Civil Military Hospitals (_ie_ hospitals controlled by a civilian medical staff) at Renkioi (on the Dardanelles) and at Sale had no responsibility, though there is volu that she was constantly consulted upon the site and arrangements of these hospitals
The medical superintendent of the hospital at Renkioi was Dr E A
Parkes, hoale formed a friendshi+p which endured to the end of his life
II
The state of the hospitals when Miss Nightingale arrived requires so The treat the Crimean War was the subject of Departmental Inquiries, Select Committees, and Royal Co upon the hospitals, began sitting upon each other
Enormous piles of Blue-books were accumulated, and in the course of my work I have disturbed much dust upon them The conduct of every departe, answer, and countercharge innueneration deserves, no doubt, the records of eneration need not be punished by having to examine in detail the records of another Some of the details of the Crimean muddle will indeed necessarily be disinterred in the course of our story; but all that need here be collected froeneral conclusions
The reader must remember, in the first place, that, apart from controverted particulars, it was lect in the service of the sick and wounded The conflict of testiive an account based upon the facts of one hospital or of one time which was not applicable to another At Scutari, for instance, the General Hospital was froain, different witnesses had different standards of as ”good” in War Hospitals; to soood if it was no worse than the standard of the Peninsular War Of Sir George Broho coht Division in the Crimea, it was said: ”As he was thrown into a cart on sos in Spain, he thinks the same conveyances admirable now, and hates aale had nant sarcasm for those who seemed content that the soldier in hospital should be placed in the condition of ”for that he ”should be treated with that degree of decency and hu of the nineteenth century demands” But the principal reason for the conflict of testimony was that the very facts of protest and inquiry put all the officials concerned upon the defensive Any suggestion of default or defect was resented as a personal imputation There is a curious illustration in the letter which the Head of the Army Medical Department wrote to his Principal Medical Officer in view of the Roebuck Co you to supply me, and that immediately”--hat?
with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? No--”with every kind of information which you may deem likely to enable me to establish a character for it [the Department], which the public appear desirous to prove that it does not possess”[88] But though there was much conflict of evidence, the final verdict was decisive What Greville wrote in his Journal--”the accounts published in the _Times_ turn out to be true”--was established by official inquiry and admitted by Ministers