The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-29
WARTIME NURSES.

Florence Nightingale, whose death occurred in 1911 at the advanced age Of ninety, was a revolutionist in the most splendid sense of that term. She 1t was who reVoIutionized nursing to that extent that she may be consid- cred as the mother of that professi on, Previous to her entrance into the held the sick were the victims of calIous ignorance and grasping indif- ference, but Florence Nightingale in
 troduced the trained, skilled and gen
 tie hospital nurse, district nurse and
 military nurse of to-day
 Certainly to few women-and to few
 men-has it been given to serve their fellows so splendidly and so effective
 ly. Florence Nightingale found chaos
 in military hospitals; she created or
 der and all that order implies.
 After the battle of Alma, in the
 Crimean war, the military hospital at
 Scutari was like a dirty shambles
 Wounded men died in hundreds in the
 midst of squalor and vermin. Crowds
 of poisonous flies buzzed ceaselessly
 above the sick; medical supplies were
 inadequate; proper food could not be
 had; there were no arrangements for
 washing or sanitation.
 The plight of the wounded soldiers
 herded together in this hotbed of pes
 tilence, was worse than if they had
 been left upon the battlefield. Are there no devoted women among you" wrote Russell, the famous war cores
 pondent of the London Times, fable and willing to go forth and administer to the sick and suffering soldiers in the east in the hospitals at Scutari? Are none of the daughters of England at this hour of need ready for such work of mercy?"
 This appeal was answered almost instantly. Sidney Herbert was then at the head of the war office, and when the authorities began to be in undated by letters from women of all classes anxious to respond to the call MT. Herbert's thoughts at once turn ed to the lady who was in his opin- ion the one woman capable of organ izing and taking out to the Crimea a staff of nurses. The woman was Florence Nightingale
 Miss Nightingale was thirty-four at the time. and from her childhood she had devoted herself to the study of hospital nursing and hospital manage ment. Tn 1849 she had enrolled her self as a volunteer nurse at the first training school for sick nurses estab- Hshed in modern timeS-the Deacon ess institution at Waiserworth, on the Rhine. When the war broke out there was no woman in all England better fitted than, Florence Nightin- gale to give to England's soldiers com fort and relief.
 MT. Herbert wrote to Miss Night 1 inga1e and asked her if she would go 1 out and supervise the whole thing. His letter cr0ssed one from her, for on the same day Florence Nightingale 1 had written to the war office offering 1 her services in the hospital at Scu- tari. The offer showed splendid | courage.
 Within a week of making her re- solve. Miss Nightingale had her first | contingent of nurses in marching or der, She had selected thirty-eight | fn r. rived at Scutari on the day before the battle of Inkerman. And without a moments loss of time that lady in chief and her staff set to work to f cleanse the Augean stable which they found waiting for them at the great barrack hospital
 In a short time the place was en- tirely renovated. Everything was scrubbed, old clothes were burned, a kitchen and laundry were established, and the place became comfortable, well organized hospital Florence superintended everything. She worked as hard at the routine and as at the nursing itself. At all hours of the day and night she would walk silently, lamp in hand, through the wards, giving word of comfort here or instruction thefe-l She saved the lives literally of hundreds
 Wounded men, so horribly mangled that doctors gave them no hope, and other nurses could not DflAS IAeHi- selves to touch them, were saved from death by the tireless care of this one wonderful woman. The men the very shadow of this i lady with the Iamp.'
 The supreme womanliness of the work of Miss Nightingale made her | he idol of the English people. Three nonarchs paid their tribute to her. by royalty she was not forgotten by the people. On her re- urn, shattered in health, from Scu- ari, S250,000 was presented to her by ! grateful nation. She used it all Or the founding of the Nightingale Training Home for Nurses at St. rhomas' hospital, England, which is . practically the parent of modern { raining homes throughout the world, ust as Florence Nightingale was the mother of all present day nurses Cleveland Plain Dealer.
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