Volume I Part 27 (1/2)

said Mr Sidney Herbert in Willis's Roo as she lives, her labours are marked out for her The diamond has shown itself, and it must not be allowed to return to thethe feelings of her own land was to utilize her reputation and her experience for the furtherance of her ideals Her experiences during the Criained an insight into rasp of the subject, which had caused the Queen and Prince to ”e had her at the War Office” Her first duty, then, was to use her experience, so far as opportunity offered, to improve the medical administration of the Ar to the rank of a trained calling Her mission to the East had not accomplished this object It had only advertised it, and for the rest had sho urgently the thing needed to be done The world praised her achieve, and of the obstacles and difficulties hich it had been attended

She came back from the East more resolved than ever to be a pioneer in the refor

But first she needed rest and seclusion Rest, in which to recuperate fro strain of labours, hardshi+ps, and anxieties Seclusion, in which to hide herself from publicity and applause The world praised her self-sacrifice She felt that she had ed to attain that har and its appointed work, in which, according to her philosophy, lay the union of lory in dread of vain-glory ”'Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?' God ht question” ”I believe,” she had written to her father in 1854, shortly before her Call to the Crimea came, ”that there is, within and without huress for human nature At the same time I believe that to do that part of this world's hich harmonizes, accords with the idiosyncrasy of each of us, is the means by which we may at once render this world the habitation of the Divine Spirit in Man, and prepare for other such work in other of the worlds which surround us The Kingdom of Heaven is within us Those words seem to me the most of a revelation, of a New Testament, of a Gospel--of any that are recorded to have been spoken by our Saviour” Her period of rest was to be very short, as we shall learn; but let us leave her cohts, till another Part opens a new chapter of activity in her life

PART III

FOR THE HEALTH OF THE SOLDIERS

(1856-1861)

We can do no more for those who have suffered and died in their country's service; they need our help no longer; their spirits are with God who gave thes may not have been endured in vain--to endeavour so to learn fros in future by forethought and wise ement--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (Reply to Address from the Parishi+oners of East Wellow, Dec 1856)

CHAPTER I

THE QUEEN, MISS NIGHTINGALE, AND LORD PANMURE

(August-November 1856)

To shape the whisper of a throne--TENNYSON

Whenever the British people have h a war, there is a tiland the Unready turns round uneasily and thinks that she must now mend her ways The lessons of the war must be learnt The word ”efficiency” is blessed in everya better state of preparedness next time, are canvassed, and a few of them are sometimes carried out

And then to the hot fit, a cold fit succeeds War and its lessons fade into the past Economy displaces efficiency as the favourite word Peace seems to be more likely than another war, and, if war should unhappily coain ” the permanent _vis inertiae_ of ministers and departments once more in undisturbed possession Reformers, familiar with this succession of flow and ebb, know that they must seize the favourableas they are etic In the field of the Army Medical Service, where the Cri and terrible, large and far-reaching refor the Crimean peace Indeed it may be said that from this period dates the first serious and sustained movement for the application of sanitary science to the British Army

That effective use was thus made of the spasm of repentance which followed the Crimean War was due primarily and mainly to the zealous co-operation of two individuals, the same those alliance for Part of this Meale When her friend died in 1861, worn out prehtingale devoted to histhe years 1856-1861

In that pamphlet[222]--a model of lucidity and concision--while yet inforht, and not untouched by emotion--she made no reference of any kind to her own share in the work She described the reforms, and said that in all that was done ”Sidney Herbert was head and centre” And so in many respects he was He was the Chairman of the Royal Commission and the Sub-Commissions He was afterwards Minister for War He was from first to last the official head of the reform movement And he waszeal, and threw his heart and soul into the work

Yet if Sidney Herbert had written the account, he ale was the head and centre of it all If she could have done little without hiht he have done little without her He was in the foreground, she in the background His was the public voice; the words which he spoke or wrote were often the words of Florence Nightingale He was the practical politician who carried out their co force was hers And she did eneral impetus Her mastery of detail was ever at Mr Herbert's elbow ”I never intend to tell you,”

he wrote to her when the first of the Royal Coust 7, 1857), ”howthe last three months, for I should never be able to norance would have been a the Medical Philistines God bless you!” But between two such loyal allies and understanding friends, it were needless to apportion the relative shares They spoke and wrote of their working together as ”our Cabinet,” ”our Cabal,” or ”our Mess” It is the story of this coht with lasting benefit to the British Ar four chapters

[222] An expansion, issued in 1862, of a memorandum, privately printed in 1861 See below, p 408

II

What Miss Nightingale needed on her return froht only of herself, she would have taken, was a long spell of rest She had been through a can of labour and anxiety, under conditions of strain and distress, such as est constitution Mr Herbert, as in Ireland when she returned to England, surht, and sent her the prescription of his Carlsbad doctor--_ni lire_, _ni ecrire_, _ni reflechir_ After such severe tension of mind and body, a reaction was inevitable He sent the prescription, but he did not expect her entirely to adopt it ”I should doubt,” he wrote to her uncle, ”with a mind constituted as hers is, whether _entire_ rest, with a total cessation froreater trial and less effective for her restoration to health than a life of soh very limited and ht be persuaded to take up co work in a London hospital Presently they met (Sept) in the country-house of their ht that Mr Herbert was ”lukewarm” on the subject of Arhtingale's health and keep her free frohts than neutrality or passive spectatorshi+p She was burning for the fray, and flung all consideration of health aside in order to devote herself to rousing the lukewar the resolute

To understand the passionate devotion, the self-sacrificing ardour, hich Miss Nightingale set to work immediately upon her return, we must remember what she had seen in the East She had ”identified herself,” as we have heard, ”with the heroic dead,” and she knew that many of her ”children,” as she called thelect ”No one,” she wrote,[223] ”can feel for the Army as I do These people who talk to us have all fed their children on the fat of the land and dressed them in velvet and silk, while we have been away I have had to see imental trousers, and to see them fed on raw salt , froraves But I can never forget Peopledreadful winter to knohat it was”

Others th of her character and powers lay, however, in the corasp She not only felt the neglect which had sacrificed her children's lives, but she tabulated the causes The facts which had coures in which she summarized and analysed the her residence in the Eastern hospitals she had seen 4600 soldiers die And as she studied the figures, the conclusion was irresistibly borne in upon her that the greater number need not have died at all Many of the diseases to which they had succuravated, in the hospitals themselves Her personal observation told her that it was so; statistical inquiry proved it ”We had,” she pointed out, ”during the first seventhe troops at the rate of 60 per cent per annum from _disease_ alone, a rate of ue in London, and a higher ratio than the mortality in cholera to the attacks” By a series of refor efforts and vehement expostulations, this terrible rate ofthe last sixour _sick_ not uards at ho our troops, in the last fiveour troops at home” It was obvious fro the first period was largely preventable Here was ”a complete exareat disaster arising frohest state of health and efficiency” It was the iene And Miss Nightingale was filled with a passionate desire that the lessons of the experiment should be taken to heart by the nation; that such radical reforms should be made as would render a repetition of the disaster and the neglects i short of radical refor,” she wrote in sulect of sanitary precautions at Scutari, ”in the education of the Medical Officer--nothing in the organization or powers of the Ar in the whole Hospital procedure--nothing in the Arulations which would have met the case of these Hospitals And were a siain, especially after the lapse of a few years of peace, the whole thing would occur over again This is the frightful consideration which ought to ain this experience--otherwise, let bygones be bygones”[224]