The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1902-01-10
LADY WITH THE LAMP.

LADY WITH THE LAMP.
Florence NightinEale,theS weet-Face
Heroine of the Crimea.
In st. Thomas Hospital, London,
there stands the statue of woman
which is always proudly pointed out
to the visitor. She wears the dress Of
Il nurse, and carries in her hand 4
nurses night lamp. The figure is tall
and slender, not to say agile; the face
reserve upon it--a "veiled and silent
woman" she has been called. The living
face, however, would kindle with Il
strange luminousness in conversation,
and the dark and steady eyes glow
with what keen observer has describ-
ed as "star-like brightness" 1t is OF
the original Of this statue that Long
fellow has written:
The wounded from the battle plain
In dreary hospitals Of pain,
The cherries Corridors,
The cold and stony floors.
TO! in that house Of misery
\ lady with a lamp. see :.
Pass through the glimmering gloom
And fit from room to room.
And slow as in 4 dream Of bliss
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow as it falls
Upon the darkening walls!
From the tragedy Of the Crimean
war this figure energies with nimbus
of glory. One is that Of the great Rus
sian engineer, Todleben, with power
full brow and face Of iron sternness;
the other is this slender, modest Eng
lish lady with downcast eyes and pen
sive brow. 1t is Florence Nightingale.
whose womanly hand added so gra-
cious an element to the memory OF
those sad days. And of, the two, who
will doubt that the ''angel Of the hospi-
tal'' has won the more enduring fame?
Even after SO many years have pass
cd it is difficult for us to read without
being Overcome By Il flood Of mingled
wrath and pity the story of the thou
sands Of brave men who died unat-
tended in the hospitals at Scutari, or
pcrished miserably of cold and starva-
ton in the trenches about Sebastopol,
while medicines and medical appli-
Ances lay wasted on the beach at
Narna, and food in abundance was rot
ting in the holds of vessels in Balaclava
harbor. There were $4,000 sick in the
hospitals. The death rate was as high
as 52'per cent; four out Of every five
patients who underwent amputation
died of hospital gangrene amidst filth
that would have disgraced a tribe of
savages. Such was the story that
stirred every Womans heart in the
three Kingdoms as with trumpet note,
and Miss Florence Nightingale was
asked to organize a nursing service in
the great hospital at Scutari.
Florence Nightingale was the daugh-
tor of a wealthy English household, but
born III Florence, Italy, from which
city she derived her name. That she
was woman of fine intellect, clear
Judgment, and heroic will, cannot bt
doubted. Dean Stanley indeed has
called her "a woman Of commanding
genius" Most certainly she proved
herself ia the Crimea to have great
powers of administration. But all he1
genius ran in womanly channels, espe
cially IN that of nursing. Every woman
she said, has, sooner or later, some 9th
er human life dependent upon her skill
as a nurse; and nursing she insisted
was all art, one Of the finest Of all arts
Florence Nightingale has Away!
practiced what she preached. Born t,
the ease aud luxury Of a rich woman's
life, she yet turned aside, and spent te,
years studying nursing as an art, frs
at the great Moravian hospital at Kai
serworth, next with the Sisters of St
Vincent de Paul. in Paris Then sh
organized home for sick goyernesse
in London. Then came the opportunit,
Of her life in the call to the east.
On Oct. q, 1854, she sailed for Scu
tart with band of thirty-eight nurses
of whom ten were Roman Catholic Sis
tiers Of Mercy and fourteen members O
an Anglican sisterhood. She had kee
horror Of parade and started with, he
gallant band without public notice {
any kind, arriving at Scutari on No
s, the very day of great battle.
What 8 colossal task lay before thes
gentle Aeroines: The hospital ha
$500 patients, and the wards wei
rank with fever and cholera and tt
odor Of undressed wounds. To tn
army Of the sick and dying were adde
in few hours the wounded from L