The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-06-02


setting her nurses an example of
obedience to the surgeons she set her
self to the task Of cleansing the Au-
gean hospitals containing over 1000
patients. These barrack hospitals at
Scuturi, which had been loaned to the
British government by the sultan of
Turkey, We're 100 feet above the Bos-
porus. The day before the arrival Of
the staff Of nurses the wounded from
BalaclaVa had been landed. packed in
the overCrowded transports, their
wounds had not been dressed for five
days, and cholera and fever were reap
ing their fearful harvest. The poor
men outside in the trenches, half per-
ished with cold and starvation. were
farlng far better than the sufferers in
| the tainted wards of the disordered
hospitals.
After comparative comfort had been
established, Florence Nightingale
opened diet kitchen, where specialties
were prepared for the 500 men who
could not eat ordinary food; laundry,
where, for the first time since they had
been brought down from the Crimea,
the ragged clothes of the soldiers were
washed, and a combination library and
schoOlroom, where the chaplain aided
her in instituting games and lectures
! for the convalescentS
The most difficult of all the provinces
was, Of course, that of nursing, yet it
is said that wherever there was the
/ greatest danger or distress, there the
! faithful head was to be found silently
/ experimenting, never allowing a Sc
/ we're case to escape her personal treat
ment. To accomplish this she often
/ stood twenty hours at a time. and at
! ter the doctor had retired she was to
/ be seen making her nightly rounds
I of
! shading with her hand the lamp that
! she carried, that it might not disturb
/ the sick, many of whom as she passed
| kissed her shadow on their pillows with
! passionate enthusiasm. LOngfelloW has
COMMUNICATED this incident in his ex-
! quisite Santa FilOmena," with such
sympathetic touch that no biographer
OF Florence Nightingale can refrain
from quoting it:
Loi in that house of misery
| A lady with d lamp I see
| Pass through the gHmmering gloom,
And fit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
| The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow as it falls
| Upon the daTkening walls,
On EnglandS annals, through the long
I Hereafter of her speech and song,
| A light its rays shall cast
| From portals OF the past.
/ A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history OF the land
| A noble type of good
! Heroic WOmanhOOd.
Not so elegant, yet probably as sin
cere as the NOR. polished verse, were
the street ballads in which popular en-
tbusiasm extOlled.
The Nightingale of the east,
For her heart it means good
And in the Nightingale home, St
Thomas hospital London, a statuette
of the Angel Of the Crimea" tells the
same story in marble
Through her unflagging efforts the
death rate in the barracks hospital al
Scutari which she found at so per cent
was reduced to fraction over 1 per
cent. Then she felt it her duty to cross
the Black sea to do what she could to
alleviate the suferings in the hut hos
pitfalls of Balaclava, Here competent
help was even more difficult to secure
than at Scutari. and the protracted
strain finally brought about the long
feared result over which her friends
had been so apDrehensiVe. Florence
Nightingale succumbed to the Crimean
fever, and for several weeks lay at the
point of death. Shortly after her re-
covery the One-and-a-half years wal
came to a close, and its heroine slipped
quietly home, an invalid for life. Toe
unassuming to accept any personal re-
ward for her services. or even the care
fully planned ovation Of her grateful
countrymen, she retired to her Derby
shire home, for many years unable tc
leave the house
Her invalid life was anything but idle
however, for she has worked during
the remainder of her long life in ameli.
Grating with her pen the hospital condi-
tons throughout entire Europe, India
and Australia; her favorite recreation
being an occasional visit to the Night
ingale memorial home, which England
erected at a cost of $4,000 as a testi-
mOnial to her helpfulness during the
| Crimean war. She possessed a wonder
fal facility in condensing tedious re
ports and foliOs into strikingly luciC
briefs. most useful to the engineer
architect, medical officer and home.
maker.
The Crimean war she characterized
as "a sanitary experiment upon a col
Ossal scale, and she impressed uDOI
the British commissioners its salutarl
but narrowing lessons. In addition t,
her helpful books upon the health o.
the British soldier, her labors in helpins
to found the Red Cross society entitl,
, her to the gratitude of the SOldiery o.
the civilized world. Just recently il
her 18th year England has consulted
her regarding the military hospitals il
the TransVaal