The Dangerous Book of Heroes by Conn Iggulden

Author:Conn Iggulden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid

In October 1854 the nurses left England for Paris to buy medical supplies. News had spread of their mission, and they were welcomed and well treated by French locals before moving on to the great port of Marseilles. Nightingale oversaw the purchases of everything she thought she might need before they sailed on October 27 to Malta and then Constantinople, now known as Istanbul.

By November, after terrible gales, they reached Constantinople. The British ambassador sent Lord Napier to greet Nightingale and he was much taken with the handsome and dedicated woman who was still exhausted from seasickness. However, she could not rest. The battle of Balaklava had been fought, and the hospital was expecting a new rush of casualties at any moment.

The first sight of the hospital at Scutari was not impressive. Nightingale was used to dirt in hospitals, but she was not prepared to find thousands of dying men, most of whom had diarrhea. What drains existed were blocked, and the smell of the hospital reached right out to sea. Nightingale later wrote that it should have had “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” written above its gate. Her most famous work had begun.

One of the reasons for the appalling state of the hospital was the lifeless hand of British bureaucracy. Even a request for a new shirt might be passed along to a dozen different officials, then lost or forgotten. Her foresight in buying her own supplies was rewarded. The doctors in Scutari had no medicine, dressings, or bandages. Amputation was the main treatment of wounds, and the mortality rate for such butcher’s work was incredibly high.

Even so, her first reception was not a pleasant experience. Apart from the sounds and smells of the hospital, the doctors were hostile to the idea of a group of women interfering in their work. They gave Florence and her group of thirty-eight nurses just six small rooms, one of which had a body in it. The following morning the doctors made it clear that they would not allow women on the wards. Nightingale said nothing and put her nurses to work preparing and sorting the supplies she had brought.

On November 5 the battle of Inkerman took place and winter came in a sudden cold blast. Thousands more wounded began to arrive at the already overcrowded hospital. The doctors were overwhelmed and asked Nightingale if she would assist. It is a testament to her character that she made nothing of the small victory, just gathered her nurses and made her first tour of the hospital. “I have seen hell,” she said later.

She had funds, both from Sidney Herbert’s government purse and a collection organized by The Times itself from its readers. She sent to Constantinople for whatever was needed, from operating tables to soap, clothes, food, and bedpans. In the meantime, she set about cleaning the filthy rooms. Two hundred men were hired to unblock the drains. Women were engaged to scrub and scour the floors, while Nightingale set the soldiers’ wives to washing clothes and linen.

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