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
Miss Nightingale's resentment was perfectly justified. Her remonstrances
to Mr. Herbert were necessary. His well-intentioned action was
calculated to undermine her authority, and to aggravate her
difficulties; and, in both of these ways, to imperil the success of
their joint experiment. Her handling of the crisis which had burst upon
her was, perhaps, in relation to the subordinates unfortunate. Miss
Stanley was accompanied by Dr. Meyer, a medical man, and Mr. Jocelyne
Percy, who had gone out (as Mrs. Herbert wrote to Mrs. Bracebridge)
devoted to Miss Nightingale, "saying he would be her footman, etc."[105]
"We picked out," added Mrs. Herbert plaintively, "the two men in England
who, we thought, would help Flo most," and they returned sad and sore at
their cold reception. Miss Nightingale, acting on advice she received on
the spot, asked them to sign notes of their conversation with her;[106]
this rankled with them, and Mr. Percy made a grievance of it in
England. Mrs. Herbert, in reporting all this to Mrs. Bracebridge (Jan.
7, 1855), made the final reflection: "Perhaps it is wholesome for us to
be reminded that Flo is _still a mortal_, which we were beginning to
doubt." Mortals have to deal with entanglements as best they may on the
spur of the moment; and those at a distance hardly made enough allowance
for the difficulties with which Miss Nightingale was suddenly
confronted, for the danger which Mr. Herbert's dispatch of unsolicited
reinforcements involved, and, therefore, for the importance which she
attached to having all the conditions defined in black and white.
[105] See below, p. 241.
[106] It was Mr. Bracebridge who took the notes of the interview.
Her practical genius and good sense speedily triumphed, however, over
the difficulties of the case. In agreement with the medical authorities,
the number of female nurses at Scutari was raised to 50, and Miss
Nightingale weeded out some of her original staff in favour of
new-comers. Others of them were sent to the hospitals at Balaclava (p.
254); and others to those at Koulali (p. 174). Miss Stanley, whose
intention it had been to return to England as soon as she had deposited
her party, remained for several months in charge at the latter place,
not administering the nursing service altogether according to Miss
Nightingale's ideas,[107] but rendering aid to the afflicted of which
her brother, the Dean, has left us so charming and sympathetic a
memorial.[108]
[107] Miss Nightingale made some criticisms in an official letter to the
War Office, May 1, 1855; printed at pp. 389, 390 of the pamphlet
No. 52 in Bibliography B. And in another letter (March 5) she
begged Lord Panmure to relieve her of responsibility for the
hospitals at Koulali.
[108] In an appendix to the _second_ edition (1880) of his _Memorials of
Edward and Catherine Stanley_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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