CHAPTER XV

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE AND HER WORK

In September, 1854, after the battle of Alma, the English newspapers were filled with complaints and protests concerning the treatment of the sick and the wounded in the Crimea, and Sir Robert Peel started a relief fund which amounted to nearly $60,000. Lord Sidney Herbert, secretary of war, asked Florence Nightingale if she would go to Turkey with a party of nurses and carry out the scheme of relief proposed by the contributors to the fund. It is a singular fact that his letter was crossed in the mails by one from Miss Nightingale volunteering her services, not as a leader or director of the movement, but as an ordinary nurse.

Miss Nightingale was then a little more than thirty-four years old. She was the youngest daughter of William Shore Nightingale, a descendant of a famous old Derbyshire family of considerable wealth, and her mother was the daughter of William Smith, a practical philanthropist, an associate of Wilberforce in the abolition of slavery, in prison reforms, and similar movements, and for many years a member of the House of Commons.

Miss Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, May 12, 1820; hence her name. From early childhood, she had been associated with philanthropic movements in which her father and grandfather were engaged, and natural inclination as well as deep sympathy with distress led her to give her entire time to benevolent work instead of seeking social enjoyment and distinction. During her girlhood she had been thoroughly educated, was familiar with the classics and modern languages, and was one of the first women anywhere to take up the study of medicine.

She gained practical experience in the hospitals of London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, spent three years with the Sœurs de Charité at Paris, in the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserworth on the Rhine, and in the hospitals at Berlin and Brussels, and in 1850, upon her return to England, had undertaken the management of a home for sick governesses in London. She was also engaged with Sir Robert Raikes in organizing “ragged schools” and in segregating diseased children who attended them. In the meantime she had established a training school for nurses--the first in England.

She thus had ten years of preparation for the work she was called to perform in the Crimea, and within ten days after receiving her invitation from the secretary of war, was on her way to Constantinople with a staff of thirty-eight trained nurses, including fourteen Anglican Sisters and ten Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy. All of them were volunteers and among them were three ladies of noble families.

Upon their arrival at Constantinople, Miss Nightingale and her nurses at once took charge of the hospitals at Scutari, the suburb which occupies the opposite bank of the Bosphorus, and there they found 3,000 diseased and wounded Englishmen lying on the ground, without any comforts, and lacking actual necessities. They had no proper food or medical attendance, and the few surgeons who were trying to relieve their distress were without instruments or drugs or bandages, or even the commonest medical supplies. Hundreds died from sheer exhaustion, from lack of nourishment and ordinary attention, and as Miss Nightingale herself described the scene: “Neglect, mismanagement and disease had united to render the situation one of unparalleled hideousness.”

Within a few days Miss Nightingale had in operation a kitchen capable of feeding eight hundred men daily, and a laundry which was ample to wash the linen that had never been changed until she came. With a daring that few men would have shown, she ordered warehouses broken open by force and confiscated supplies that were needed by her patients. Her courage, her zeal, and her determination brought order out of chaos, and a few weeks after her arrival the hospitals at Scutari were in excellent condition.

As is usual in such cases, Miss Nightingale was the continual object of attack from malicious, jealous, and uncharitable people. But this made no difference in her work or her influence, and when she received an autograph letter from Queen Victoria conveying her congratulations and expressions of gratitude and sympathy she felt sure of her position.

More nurses kept coming from England, and several other hospitals were established on the Bosphorus. Then Miss Nightingale went to the Crimea and organized at Balaklava and vicinity the work I have already described. In addition to hospitals, she established a series of reading tents and recreation huts for the diversion of the soldiers, and sent to England for books, periodicals, and newspapers. She set up neat coffee houses as a counter attraction to the liquor saloons; she started lecture courses, opened school-rooms, and upon her own responsibility founded a bank where the soldiers could deposit their pay and secure money orders for transmission home. More than $350,000 passed through her hands in that way before the end of the war.

After the evacuation of the Crimea by the British troops, Florence Nightingale returned to England. Her last act in the Crimea was the dedication of a cross, twenty feet high, upon the crest of a crag overlooking her hospital. The only inscription was these words:

LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US

Upon her return to England, Miss Nightingale received from Queen Victoria a beautiful jewel designed by Prince Albert, accompanied by an autograph letter; the sultan of Turkey sent her a diamond bracelet, valued at $100,000, and she was overwhelmed with gifts, testimonials, and tributes of every sort from municipalities, corporations, benevolent societies, religious associations, and individuals. A fund in cash, amounting to about $240,000, raised as a gift to her, was at her request devoted to the establishment of a training school for nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital. She was a guest of the queen at Balmoral, she received the “freedom of the city” from nearly every town of importance in England, and was honoured in every possible way by every class of people, from royalty to the clubs of workingmen and women.

She was the only woman who ever received the Order of Merit; she was the only woman who was ever made a member of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem; Queen Victoria bestowed upon her the Red Cross; the city of London conferred upon her “the freedom of the city,” an honour enjoyed by only one other woman--the late Baroness Burdette-Coutts. For twenty years or more her birthday has always been recognized by an autograph letter of congratulations from the queen or the king of England, and by resolutions of congratulations from numerous organizations throughout the world.

She celebrated her ninetieth birthday on May 12, 1910, and one of the first acts of King George V, who came to the throne only a few days previously, was to send her a telegram of congratulation.

After her return from the Crimea, Miss Nightingale was engaged for several years, under the direction of the secretary of state for war, in reorganizing the military hospital service of Great Britain. Her instructions and rules in regard to army nursing, which fill a large volume, prepared at the request of the war office, have been the basis of reforms throughout the world. They were of special importance during the Civil War in the United States and the war between France and Germany which followed shortly after, and led to the founding of the Red Cross Society, now established in every civilized country.

Miss Nightingale did not confine her work to the military service, but directed and assisted the organization of training schools for nurses in all the principal cities of Great Britain and the establishment of district nursing associations for outdoor relief among the poor. Her theory had always been that hospitals should be reserved for surgical cases and infectious or contagious diseases and that, so far as possible, the indigent sick should be treated in their own homes.

She reorganized the infirmaries connected with workhouses and almshouses throughout Great Britain, and through her influence acts of Parliament were passed making compulsory the employment of trained nurses in these institutions instead of women paupers to whose tender mercies the care of the sick had always been committed.

During all this activity, Miss Nightingale found time to write a series of books of instruction, and many pamphlets and papers concerning public health and the efficiency of hospital administration. In 1858, she published a book on hospital construction. In 1860, her “Notes on Nursing,” a volume of five hundred pages, ran up to an edition of one hundred thousand copies. Other publications on similar subjects came from her pen with extraordinary frequency.

But at last her frail constitution broke down under this labour and responsibility. She became a helpless invalid, confined to her bed for more than twenty-five years, yet she continued to devote her entire time to “doing good work--work after my own heart, and, I trust, God’s work.” From her pillow she continued to direct several institutions and movements in which she was particularly interested. The meetings of boards of directors and trustees of a dozen benevolent institutions were held regularly in her bedroom, and her judgment was regarded of the highest value on all subjects relating to hospital management and benevolent work. Even up to the last month of her life she continued to receive reports and to give instructions, to write communications to the government authorities and to give advice upon various subjects, and it was not until forty-eight hours before her death that she was considered dangerously ill.

There never was a more useful woman than Florence Nightingale, and never one more honoured and revered throughout the world. Therefore there was a universal demand in England that she should be honoured with a burial and a monument in Westminster Abbey, and when the executors of her estate who were in charge of the funeral refused an offer from the dean and chapter, there was great surprise. It afterward appeared that Miss Nightingale had given the following directions in her will:

“I give my body for dissection or _post-mortem_ examination for the purposes of medical science, and I request that the directions about my funeral given by me to my uncle, the late Samuel Smith, be observed. My original request was that no memorial whatever should mark the place where lies my ‘mortal coil.’ I much desire this, but should the expression of such wish render invalid my other wishes, I limit myself to the above-mentioned directions, praying that my body may be carried to the nearest convenient burial ground, accompanied by not more than two persons without trappings, and that a simple cross with only my initials, date of birth and of death, mark the spot.”

Balaklava, which was the scene of Miss Nightingale’s usefulness, is an ancient village of Greek fishermen, whose ancestors settled on the southern shores of the Crimea at least three thousand years ago, to catch the unusually large variety of fish in which that section of the Black Sea abounds. Balaklava is the source of a large portion of the supply of the eggs of the pilchard, the most popular of caviars among Russian epicures. The name Balaklava is a composition of “bella” and “klava,” which means “fine port,” although the bay is no larger than a Norwegian fiord, and is set like a sapphire between two emerald mountains. The entrance is as crooked as the letter S and very narrow. Balaklava is also an unfashionable summer resort, a retreat for tired people, who wish to escape society and who are not fond of style. There are three or four unpretentious hotels, two or three beautiful villas, and every fisher-wife takes boarders. There are bathing houses, a hydropathic sanitarium, and on the mountain side among the vineyards a “grape cure” establishment, which at the height of the fad was largely patronized.

There is only one street in the village and houses on only one side of that. Every citizen, therefore, has the benefit of an exquisite view. There are a few small shops and cafés and two pavilions where visitors can sit and sip their tea and look over the waters. The view is fascinating and the effect is heightened by the miniature character of the place--the bay is so tiny, the village so small, and the cliffs which enclose them are so high and bold and rugged.

A walk over the cliffs leads to the ruins of a castle and fortress built by the Genoese in the Middle Ages on the summit to command the harbour. Only a portion of the walls remain. The castle, or citadel, was the apex of a triangular fortification, the base of which was parallel to the port, and there was a strong tower at each corner. The Genoese were in possession of this part of the coast for several centuries and made Balaklava a stronghold. A graphic description of the place was written by a Russian merchant named Nikitin, who stopped here in 1472 on his return from a trip to India, but a thousand years previous Balaklava was described by Strabo and other Greek writers when it was known as “the calm port of the signals.”

“Miss Nightingale’s seat,” on the hillside overlooking the village, is a group of rocks where she used to go for rest and thought, and beside it are the graves of a few of her brave nurses. Every house in which she slept, every place in the vicinity that is associated with her in any way is hallowed. The present owners are as proud of that distinction as owners of English castles are of the rooms in which Queen Elizabeth slept. Her principal hospital was at the monastery of St. George, said to be the oldest and one of the largest in Russia. Most of the monks fled on the approach of the allies, and the British seized the buildings for hospital purposes and placed them under Miss Nightingale’s charge. The room she occupied is sacred and is shown to all visitors with great satisfaction.

The monastery was built in the latter part of the ninth century, somewhere about the year 890, by certain Greek merchants who were miraculously saved during a fearful storm by the intercession of St. George. It occupies an extraordinary position at the top of a cliff, several hundred feet above the sea, in the midst of an amphitheatre of black basaltic rock, which rises to the height of one thousand feet on both sides and in the rear. The amphitheatre is entered through a tunnel cut in the rocks, no doubt by the ancient troglodytes, whose remains are found in the neighbourhood. Tradition says that this amphitheatre was the site of a temple and altar to the goddess Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, and here were sacrificed all strangers and castaways that the Tauri found upon their coast.

The most interesting remains of the troglodytes are found in cliffs overhanging a little stream at Inkerman, where another fierce battle was fought during the Crimean war. The Russians have erected a monument in the field where most of the fighting was done, and a granite shaft marks the centre of the English camp, which is inscribed:

In memory of the English, French and Russian soldiers who fell in the battle of Inkerman, Nov. 5, 1854.

Erected by the British Army, 1856

The battle of Inkerman was a surprise. The Russians crept up a ravine in the night and before daylight struck the sleeping Englishmen in their camp. It so happened that many of the officers were absent and in the beginning every soldier fought independently for his life. After the dawn, when there was light enough for the Englishmen to see what was going on, the defence was thoroughly organized and the Russians were driven back with a heavy loss.

The village of Inkerman occupies the head of the bay which forms the harbour of Sevastopol and is surrounded by the most noted quarries in southern Russia. They have been worked for ages, and vast chambers have been excavated in the soft limestone which underlies the scanty soil of a high, dry, bare plateau. These chambers are entered through square doorways cut in the cliffs and wooden tramways and skids are laid along the floors of the galleries, so that the blocks of stone can be hauled out. It is as soft as chalk when first cut, but grows hard by exposure. Odessa, Sevastopol and other cities in southern Russia are built almost entirely of this material. At present the quarrymen are engaged in cutting out vast quantities of small blocks of stone for a new palace which the czar is building on his estate on the Crimean coast, near Yalta.

Both walls of the gorge in which Inkerman sits are honeycombed with artificial caves, supposed to have been the dwellings of the troglodytes of mythology in prehistoric ages, and afterward the refuge of the early Christians during the persecutions of the emperor Justinian. Some of the caves were converted into chapels and are used as such still. There is a monastery of twelve or fifteen monks entirely underground, occupying the cliff dwellings of the troglodytes, and on the opposite side of the gorge is a chapel that will accommodate a hundred and fifty or two hundred people, where service is held every Sabbath and mass is sung every morning. In the vestibule are niches for coffins, and only clean skeletons are lying in three open graves which were chiselled out of the stone. They were uncovered only a few years ago and are supposed to be the remains of early bishops or priests.

Pope Clement I was sentenced by the emperor Trajan of Rome, to hard labour in these quarries and was brought here in the year 94 A.D. He was afterward condemned to death for trying to convert the natives to Christianity and suffered martyrdom by being thrown from the cliffs into the sea in the year 100. Until the ninth century, on each anniversary of his death, the sea receded from the shore for the space of seven days, leaving his petrified body exposed upon the sands, and multitudes of pilgrims came here on these occasions to venerate him and to be relieved of deformities, disease, and distress. Pope Clement was subsequently canonized.