Notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency, and hospital administration of the British Army : founded chiefly on the experience of the late war / by Florence Nightingale ; presented by request to the Secretary of State for War.

  • Florence Nightingale
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency, and hospital administration of the British Army : founded chiefly on the experience of the late war / by Florence Nightingale ; presented by request to the Secretary of State for War. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    March 10. Hospital Discipline. March 10, Charcoal, &c. Eemarks. March 12. Dr. Hall on the improved Health of the Army. Eemarks. March 12. Dr. Hall on Detraction. Dr. Smith to Colonel Mundy, about introducing proper Hospital discipline at Scutari: complains of visitors at improper times and suggests imiproved rules. To Dr. Hall from Dr. Smith, informing him of 80 tons of charcoal and 10 tons of chloride of lime, ordered to be sent to Balaclava, for the Camps, Hospitals, and town. Eequests re- plies to queries, about the health of the troops, previously sent. Lime-juice, as we have seen, is Dr. Smith's panacea for bad diet, in the case of Scurvy; and peat charcoal is his panacea for neglect of Sanitary measures. In neither case does the idea of preventing the mischief ever appear to have been entertained. Dr. Hall writes to Dr. Smith and is happy to inform him that thie improved state of health of the Army continues. (The mortality was then no less than at the rate of 56 percent, per annum !) Mentions the appointment of the Board of Health, by Greneral Order of the lOtli March. Had been over the 3rd Division, which is one of the most sickly. Some Command- ing Officers exert themselves more than others and their elforts are successful. Other Officers consider that the Government should bring everything to the soldier. Camps, generally speaking, are much cleaner than they were. Scurvy dis- appearing and Bowel complaints better. Supplies of every kind ample. Trench Hospitals not nearly so good as ours now% but a system of detraction has been commenced against our establishments and has been kept up, by interested parties, under the garb of philanthropy. One is tempted to ask, did Dr. Hall really know that, at the very time he was writing this unfounded statement, the sick in the Hospitals on the Bosphorus were perishing at the rate of 235 per cent, per annum on the sick population ? It is incre- dible that he knew it. The British Hospitals, for several months, had been in such a condition that nearly a third part of all the §ick had perished in them, and during the preceding month above one-half of those treated at Kulali had died. Had the British public nothing to do wdth this ? He goes on about these detractors: Some, he says, have become so, to regain lost moral reputation, and others to make their mission of importance, and they wish the world to believe that all the ameliorations in our institutions are entirely owing either to their own exertions or those of a few
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