The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 1 of 2Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir
History
The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 1 of 2
Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir
Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910
We have our Quarters in one Tower of the Barrack, and all this
fresh influx has been laid down between us and the Main Guard, in
two Corridors, with a line of Beds down each side, just room for
one person to pass between, and four wards. Yet in the midst of
this appalling Horror (we are steeped up to our necks in blood)
there is good, and I can truly say, like St. Peter, "It is good for
us to be here"--though I doubt whether if St. Peter had been here,
he would have said so. As I went my night-rounds among the newly
wounded that first night, there was not one murmur, not one groan,
the strictest discipline--the most absolute silence and quiet
prevailed--only the steps of the Sentry--and I heard one man say,
"I was dreaming of my friends at Home," and another said, "I was
thinking of them." These poor fellows bear pain and mutilation
with an unshrinking heroism which is really superhuman, and die, or
are cut up without a complaint.
The wounded are now lying up to our very door, and we are landing
540 more from the _Andes_. I take rank in the Army as Brigadier
General, because 40 British females, whom I have with me, are more
difficult to manage than 4000 men. Let no lady come out here who is
not used to fatigue and privation.... Every ten minutes an Orderly
runs, and we have to go and cram lint into the wound till a Surgeon
can be sent for, and stop the Bleeding as well as we can. In all
our corridor, I think we have not an average of three Limbs per
man. And there are two Ships more "loading" at the Crimea with
wounded--(this is our Phraseology). Then come the operations, and a
melancholy, not an encouraging List is this. They are all performed
in the wards--no time to move them; one poor fellow exhausted with
hæmorrhage, has his leg amputated as a last hope, and dies ten
minutes after the Surgeon has left him. Almost before the breath
has left his body it is sewn up in its blanket, and carried away
and buried the same day. We have no room for Corpses in the Wards.
The Surgeons pass on to the next, an excision of the
shoulder-joint, beautifully performed and going on well. Ball
lodged just in the head of the joint and fracture starred all
round. The next poor fellow has two Stumps for arms, and the next
has lost an arm and a leg. As for the Balls they go in where they
like and come out where they like and do as much harm as they can
in passing. That is the only rule they have....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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