Evening star., 1943-05-22
Crimeun Contrast

Crimeon Contrast
When the ONCE of War Informa-
ton recently reported that "the
wounded don't die" many a grateful
American must have recalled those
passages in Eminent Victorians" in
which Lytton Strachey tells about
conditions in the military medical
service as they used to be. The dis
tinguished British author says: Miss
Nightingale arrived at Scutari-a
suburb of Constantinople, on the
Asiatic side OF the Bosphorus-
November 4, 1854; it was ten days
after the Battle of Balaclava, and the
day before the Battle of Inkerman.
The organization of the hospitals,
which had already given way under
the stress of the Battle of the Alma.
was now to be subjected to the
further pressure which these two
desperate and bloody engagements
implied. Great detachments of
wounded were already beginning to
pour in"
No proper preparation had been
made for the transportation of sick
and injured soldiers from the fight
ing front to the only relief center.
The men, after receiving such sum-
mary treatment as could be given
them at the smaller hospitals in the
Grimea itself. were forthwith shipped
In patches OF two hundred across the
Black Sea to Scutari. This voyage
was in normal times one of four DAYS
and a half; but the times were no
longer normal, and now the transit
often lasted for fortnight or three
weeks. Between, and sometimes
on the decks, the wounded, the sick,
and the dying were crowded-men
who had just undergone the amputa-
ton OF limbs, men in the clutches of
fever or Of frostbite, men in the last
stages of dysentery and cholera
without beds, sometimes without
blankets, often hardly clothed. The
one or two surgeons on board did
what they could; but medical stores
were lacking. For many months,
the average Of deaths was
seventy-four in the thousand" The
miracle is that the mortality was
not much higher.
When the hospital at last was
reached, what awaited the wounded
there? Mr.. Strachey answers: Want,
neglect, confusion misery-in every
shape and in every degree of in
tensity-flled the endless corridors
and the vast apartments Of the
gigantic barrack-house. 49,. The
floors were in so rotted a condition
that many of them could not be.
scrubbed; the walls were thick with
|. dirt; incredible multitudes of vermin
swarmed everywhere. And, enormous
as the building was, it was yet too
small. 1t contained four miles of
beds, crushed together so close that
there was but just Toom to pass
between them. The stencil was
indescribable. In these sur
roundings, those who had been long
Injured to scenes of human suffer-
1ng-surgeons with worldwide
knowledge OF agonies, soldiers famil-
lar with fields Of carnage, mission
aries with remembrances of famine
and OF plague-yet found a depth of
horror which they had never known
before"
Florence Nightingale applied her
genius to the problem. How many
lives she saved, nobody can testify,
Still more important than the i'm
mediate results OF her labors was
the example she set. The fruit of the
science OF nursing in wartime which
she established ninety years ago is
evident in the owl declaration:
Never before in the history of the
world has the fighting man had
available the medical care and equip
ment the United States now fur
nishes its defenders" Only 2.e per
cent of the men wounded at Pearl
Harbor died OF their injuries. Similar
figures are reported from North
Africa.