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The Crimean War |
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The Crimean War |
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| The Crimean War was fought by Britain, France
and Turkey against Russia between 1854-56. Reports of terrible conditions reached London. Soldiers were dying in their thousands ... not just from their wounds but from starvation and the cold. |
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| During the winter of 1854/55 thousands of men died from illness, the cold and malnutrition - four times as many died from disease as did from enemy action. One Regiment, nominally over a thousand men strong, was reduced to a total of seven men by January 1855. |
| At the hospital soldiers were left lying on bare floors; there were no supplies of any kind and they had no more than one meal a day, if that. There were no lavatories or sanitation and no nurses or bandages. Men were left to die in great pain without any medical attention. |
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The Secretary of State for War, Sidney Herbert, asked Florence Nightingale to go to Scutari to run the hospital. Army doctors did not welcome her and her 36 nurses, but all the same she and her team made great improvements very quickly. |
| Florence Nightingale enforced rules on cleanliness, introduced special diets, improved the water supply and made sure there was enough food and gave the men proper nursing care. Two years after her arrival, the death rate at the hospital was two per cent. It had been 40 per cent when she arrived. |
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Florence even took to going out onto the hills after the fighting had finished for the day and helped to bring the wounded back to the hospital at Scutari. |
| The news of her work was telegraphed quickly
back to London and on her return she was greeted as a heroine. 'Sing praise to this woman, deny it who can |
