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In 1954, under the authorization of Sidney Herbert, the Secretary of War, Florence Nightingale brought a team of 38 volunteer nurses to care for the British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War, which was intended to limit Russian expansion into Europe. Nightingale and her nurses arrived at the military hospital in Scutari and found soldiers wounded and dying amid horrifying sanitary conditions. Ten times more soldiers were dying of diseases such as typhus, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery than from battle wounds.
The soldiers were poorly cared for, medicines and other essentials were in short supply, hygiene was neglected, and infections were rampant. Nightingale found there was no clean linen; the clothes of the soldiers were swarming with bugs, lice, and fleas; the floors, walls, and ceilings were filthy; and rats were hiding under the beds.1 There were no towels, basins, or soap, and only 14 baths for approximately 2000 soldiers. The death count was the highest of all hospitals...