Volume 1
The life of Florence Nightingale. Vol. II (1862-1910) / Sir Edward Cook.
- Cook, Sir Edward Tyas, 1857-1919.
- Date:
- 1913
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The life of Florence Nightingale. Vol. II (1862-1910) / Sir Edward Cook. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![or high military or medical officers in India, she wrote soliciting their good offices. Sir Charles Trevelyan, then Governor of Madras, promised cordial co-operation. Then she and Dr. Farr set to work on such statistical records as were obtainable from the East India House. There is a bundle of correspondence amongst her Papers relating to the difficulties she encountered, and surmounted, in obtain- ing official sanction for clerical work in this regard. Dr. Farr's appetite for statistics was as insatiable as hers, and she had taken means to lay in ample supplies :— (Miss Nightingale to Dr. Fan.) HlGHGATE, June 2, [1859]. Your Commission was gazetted on May 31 and Mr. Herbert is in town. As it will be necessary to obtain the Statistics of Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding of the Indian Army from the Medical Boards there, would not some of the proposed forms for the Army Medical Dep. be better than any other, filled up for each station with the Diseases annually for a period say of 10 years ? Or would it be necessary to provide others ? We must, of course, have the most minute Statistics—both for Soldiers and Officers in the Queen's, Company's and native troops. And these we should get by this method for 10 years. I suppose the Medical Boards have the Presidency Medical Book Records. Would it be necessary to get the Returns for each Corps separately ? Would it not be important to get the ages— age and time of service at Death or Invaliding ? Hampstead, Dec. 6 [1859]. ^n consequence of your in- temperate desire to have the Indian Medical Service Regulations, we have applied at the Great House for copies. And the answer is that they have only one Office copy, and if we want any we must send to India. Knowing their weakness, we had (in our Queries ) previously sent to two hundred Stations in India for copies of all Regulations, and we hope the result will satisfy your literary appetite. Dr. Farr, then, was being fed with statistics. Officials in India were being kept busy with forms to be filled up, and with the preparation of other written evidence. In Novem- ber 1859 the Commission began taking oral evidence in London, but this was a comparatively minor part of its labours, and during i860 no public sittings were held. They were resumed in 1861. Lord Stanley had then succeeded Mr. Herbert in the chair, but Miss Nightingale's grip upon the Commission was not relaxed. Two of the Commissioners,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21352173_002_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
