world; so numerous were the poor and sick who came thither, and so admirable was the care and order in which they were served. The charge of these sufferers was not at first assigned to humble hands; the most illustrious ladies of the empire participating in the offices of mercy. At Constantinople the Empress Flacilla, wife of the elder Theodosius, in the year 380 was watching with solicitude over all those whose bodies were mutilated, or who had lost limbs. She visited them in their own dwellings, waited upon them herself, and supplied their wants. She repaired with the same zeal to the public hospitals of the church, where she attended the sick, made ready their culinary utensils, tasted their broth, carried the dish to them, broke the bread, divided the meal, washed the cups, and performed for them all the offices which usually devolve upon servants. One might justly be proud to be in such royal company, and regard, as she did, nothing degrading which is necessary to be done for a sick patient. In modern times, the revival of nursing by trained women is due in great measure to that noble and accomplished woman, Florence Nightingale. As early as 1844, at the age of twenty-one years, she began to exhibit her interest in and the alleviation of suffering, and the improvement of the care of the sick poor in the hospitals of Great Britain. She visited and inspected the hospitals of Europe, and in 1851 entered into training as a nurse, in the institution of Protestant Deaconesses, at Kaiserworth on the Rhine. On her return to London she put into thorough order the Sanitarium for Governesses, in connection with the London Institute. She served ten years of apprenticeship before entering on her life work. In the spring of 1854 war was declared with Russia, and an army of 25,000 men was despatched to the Crimea. The faulty arrangements of the British government for the care of the sick and wounded furnished the theatre in which Florence Nightingale was to win her first laurels. The hospitals were soon crowded, and the mortality in the wards so great that the casualties of the fiercest battles were as nothing in comparison. The war office recognizing the condition of affairs, gladly accepted the offer of Miss Nightingale to go to the seat of war and organize a nursing department.