The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-30 00:00:00

TILE ALLIES IN LOMBARDY.

The following are extracts from a letter, dated
Milan, June 23 :
In my last I had not time to sketch the present
aspect of Milan or the contrast to its appearance on
my last visit, now just three months ago. The most
apparent point of difference is in the military. Then
the city was crowded with Austrians, now the uni-
forms one sees (and they are not very numerous)
are of course all French and Piedmontese. A great
portion of the French soldiers one sees about the
streets are men just out of hospital but not yet fit
for duty—some lame, others with arm in sling, and
others whose pallid countenances tells of hurts not
less severe, although less apparent. No man living
hates an hospital more than the French soldier. His
active, lively temperament makes its dulness and
confinement particularly odious to him, and there is
no danger of his remaining in it one hour more
than he is compelled to do. Indeed I have heard of
one or two cases here of soldiers having made their
escaße without the doctors' permission, and having,
as might be expected, to return to their beds all the
worse for their imprudence. There are now no less
than 25 military hospitals, largeand small, in Milan.
All the barracks have been converted to this pur-
pose, and hence it was that when the army passed
through it had to camp around the town, a system
still adopted for the detachments or regiments that
come up. Those 25 hospitals are said now to contain
about 10,000 patients, a very large proportion of
them wounded. I have been over three of them ;
that of San Ambrozio, where there are about 1,250 ;
that of San Luca, 350 ; and that of San Francesco
(the vast barracks built by Napoleon), where I was
informed there were about 2,500. San Ambrozio,
formerly a convent, is admirably adapted for its
present occupation ; it has lofty, airy rooms and
corridors and spacious internal courts, grass-grown,
shaded by fine trees and surrounded by cool porti-
coes. The men looked comfortable and well cared
for, and there did not seem to be many bad cases in
that establishment. It was quite full, but on the
fine afternoon on which I visited it at least five
beds out of six were empty. Their usual occu-
pants were to be seen hobbling about their corri-
dors, sitting in the embrasures of the windows, and
(not a few) dressed in their uniforms and smok-
ing under the trees in the courts. In this hos-
pital nearly all were French. I spoke to many
of them, and they seemed cheerful and contented.
The kitchens and pharmacy were extremely clean
and curiosities in their way,—such huge caldrons of
food and wholesale preparations of medicaments,
physic by the pailful, and dozens of buckets of
lemonade. A number of women, and some Mila-
nese ladies, were busy in the linen-room, with
great stores of lint and bandages and sheets ; and,
truly, great stores are needed ; and if there was a
deficiency in any respect it seemed to be in this
article. At least, it struck me that some of the
beds were not quite so clean as I have been used to
see them in other military hospitals. There was,
however, little to be said in the way of fault-find-
ing. The air of the place was sweet and pure, and
one scarcely encountered an evil odour from one end
of it to the other. A few ladies were to be met
with here and there in the wards, but it was not
the hour when the largest number attend, nor, in-
deed, that at which their attendance is most re-
quired. French and Italian Sisters of Charity
were, as usual, busy in their holy task, and here and
there a priest sat by the side of some poor wretch,
with whom the human physician's skill hardly
hoped to avail. The hospital of San Luca, on a
much smaller scale, seemed in an equally satisfac-
tory state. That of San Francesco made a less
favourable impression. Until very recently a bar-
rack, its conversion into a receptacle for the sick
can hardly be said to be as yet fully completed.
It is somewhat in the rough, and indeed the direc-
tor showed reluctance to allow of it being visited,
on account of the inevitable confusion and defi-
ciencies that still existed, but to which he was
labouring to put an end. There was certainly a
great difference between this hospital and San
Ambrozio, and visitors with delicate olfactories
would do well to limit themselves to the exa-
mination of the latter. In San Francesco there were
both French and Austrians, but the latter were in
the majority, and I was informed that the intention
was ultimately to transfer thither all the Austrians.
There seemed to be many more bad cases here than
in either of the two other hospitals. Notwithstand-
ing this, and the evident inferiority of the place in
many respects, it was stated that only one case of
hospital gangrene had occurred. There was one long
corridor, every room opening out of which was full
of amputated men. On door after door one read
the inscription " Amputati." No empty beds or
cheerful countenances here. Nothing could be
sadder than the sight of these long rows of poor
maimed fellows, or than the sound of the low mean-
ings which many of them, with set teeth, evidently
did their utmost to restrain. Not a few of them
were Croats, with the usual ugly, stolid physiognomy
of that unprepossessing race, but there were also
some excellent specimens of the Austrian soldier,
Tyrolese and others. Most of them lay motionless,
as if exhausted and weak; some with lumps of ice
resting upon their bandaged stumps. One fine,
handsome young fellow, a Tyrolese corporal, lay in
a corner, his left arm off, still and silent, but, to judge
from the flush on his cheek and expression of his
countenance, suffering intensely. A dresser showed
me the bullet that had smashed his arm—a coni-
cal ball from a French rifle, indented on one side
by the contact with the bone. The poor Tyro-
lese could not be more than 22 or 23 years old. He
smiled at the few words of sympathy addressed to
him by one of our party in his native tongue, but
the smile was very sad, as well it might be' on the
lips of one thus maimed in youth for a cause that
concerned him little. Chloroform we learned has
been generally used for the amputations in this hos-
pital, where a great number have taken place. The
medical men in most of the present military hospi-
tals of Milan are civilian doctors, who were invited
to volunteer their services. Some Austrian surgeons
are also there—whether taken prisoners or who had
been left in charge of sick I have not heard. Corn-
ing out of San Francesco we fell into conversation
with a smart little Tyrolese Jager, who was pacing
the corridor as bold, upright, and with as confident
a look as if he had been on a Vienna parade ground.
He had been slightly wounded at Magenta. Ac-
cording to his account there was but one battalion
of Tyrolese engaged there ; it was 800 strong, and,
to the best of his belief, about half of it had been
knocked over. It had suffered greatly from canister
he said, with which the French had liberally pelted
them.
The ladies who visit the hospitals, taking it in
turns, are full of kindness and attention to the un-
fortunate wounded, and. continue their fostering
care to them even during their convalescence. I
have not observed, nor am I aware, that the Aus-
trians come in for any share of their nursing or of
the many little comforts provided for those who
have been fighting on the Italian side. Gratitude
and patriotism more than charity and compassion
lead the fur Milanese to the hospital wards. " They
have suffered in our behalf, and we cannot do less
than show our gratitude by tending them," was the
reply of one of the amateur nurses to a passing re-
mark. Long, I expect, after the laurels of Magenta
and Malegnano shall have lost their freshness, and
after the majority of those who fought there and
survived shall have fallen in other fights, or have
quitted the army's ranks, will Milan be a word of
pleasant memory to the soldiers of France. Never
yet were men made so much of--I speak not of the
officers only, but of the rank and file. The private
sentinel finds himself the hero of the hour, wel-
comed and caressed in society into which, but for
this campaign of liberation, he would have gone down
to his grave without penetrating. The Zouave is
particularly in demand. One sees him driving about
in elegant carriages with aristocratic ladies, and
attended by livened domestics. With one arm in
a sling, he gives the other, clothed in the coarse
uniform sleeve, to delicate silk-clad dames and dam-
sels, who gladly accept his escort, walk with him in
the street, and sit with him in cafés. Many of
those ladies have made his acquaintance in the hos-
pital, and, having nursed him into convalescence,
desire to complete his cure, that he may again go
forth and do battle in Italy's cause. Although a rough
customer in the field and by no means renowned for
refinement and polish, he appears to show consider-
able tact and discretion in the society into which he
has unexpectedly and suddenly been introduced.
Bashfulness is by no means a Zouave weakness, and