after a painful voyage in an extreme state of weakness and emaciation, from wounds, from frost-bite, from dysentery, may be imagined, and it is no wonder that cholera and typhus were rife. In February 1855 the mortality per cent of the cases treated was forty-two. No words are necessary to emphasize so terrible a figure. [87] J. B. Atkins, _Life of Sir W. H. Russell_, vol. i. p. 143. [88] _Notes_, sec. i. p. xxii. [89] This Commission is referred to on later pages as "The Duke of Newcastle's." [90] _Notes_, sec. iii. pp. iii., ix. [91] If any reader desires to be sickened, I recommend to him the Report on the Hospitals by the Sanitary Commissioners of 1855. And if any one desires to find painful details under some of these heads detailed above, without recourse to Blue-books, he may be referred to the report in Hansard of the speech made by Mr. Augustus Stafford (an eye-witness of what he described) in the House of Commons, Jan. 29, 1855. Mr. Herbert had not waited for the reports of Commission and Committee to reach the conclusion that things were wrong:-- "I have for some time," he wrote on December 14, 1854, to the Commandant at Scutari, "been very anxious and very much dissatisfied as to the state of the hospital. I believe that every effort has been made by the medical men, and I hear that you have been indefatigable in the conduct of the immediate business of your department. But there has been evidently a want of co-operation between departments, and a fear of responsibility or timidity, arising from an entire misconception of the wishes of the Government. No expense has been spared at home, and immense stores are sent out, but they are not forthcoming. Some are at Varna, and for some inexplicable reason they are not brought down to Scutari. When stores are in the hospital, they are not issued without forms so cumbrous as to make the issue unavailing through delay. The Purveyor's staff is said to be insufficient. The Commissariat staff is said to be insufficient, your own staff is said to be insufficient," etc. By admission, then, and by official sentence, there were things amiss at Scutari which urgently called for amendment. This is the first general conclusion which has to be remembered in relation to Miss Nightingale's work.