This is the same bread-biscuit mentioned by a correspondent in the following letter, addressed to the Times.
Miss Nightingale and M. Soyer.
To the Editor of the Times.
Sir,—The sympathies of the British nation being at this moment directed to the army of the East, I feel that information as to the hospital department will interest many. Miss Nightingale returned to Scutari on the 4th inst., having left it on the 4th of the preceding month. Miss Nightingale, on her arrival at Balaklava, immediately began an active investigation of the state of the two hospitals there, as well as of the sailors’ hospitals and the field hospitals in the camp, in which she had the invaluable assistance of the Sanitary Commissioners and M. Soyer, as well as the advice and the moral support of Sir John M’Neil and Colonel Tulloch, commissioners, and of Dr. Hall and the medical staff. The affairs of the sisters and nurses were arranged, new huts built, kitchens erected and arranged, and a vigorous action in the whole department begun, with the full assent and aid of the medical officers, when Miss Nightingale was seized with the Crimean fever and carried up to the hut hospital on the Genoese heights.
She became convalescent after about twelve days, and was recommended to take a voyage to England; she, however, though in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion, refused to entertain the idea of going beyond Scutari, trusting that she might be enabled the sooner to return to her advanced post at Balaklava. Lord Ward, with a generous perseverance in well-doing, forced Miss Nightingale to accept his steam-yacht the London, which was placed at her disposal on the 3rd inst., and in this vessel she happily and rapidly performed the voyage to Scutari. The Hon. W. Wellesley, Dr. Curgewan, Lord Ward’s medical man, Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, M. Soyer, whose enterprise has been associated with that of Miss Nightingale at Balaklava, besides Mrs. Roberts, chief nurse, and servants, were on board. Miss Nightingale was visited while sick by Lord Raglan at the huts, and again on board the London, and was received on landing at Scutari by Lord W. Paulet, Commandant, Dr. Cumming, Inspector-General, and Dr. Macgregor, Deputy Inspector. The house of the chaplain is placed at her disposal by the Rev. Mr. Sabin, and she has been offered the use of the British Palace at Pera by Lord and Lady Stratford de Redcliffe. Miss Nightingale is extremely weak, but has no remains of fever, and no danger is apprehended.
The sanitarium, in huts on the Genoese heights at Balaklava, is now in full action, and will accommodate about six hundred, at the elevation of seven hundred feet above the sea. The wounded are doing well there, and the kitchen has been perfected by M. Soyer. One of the large huts is used as a chapel, and the whole staff of medical men, purveyors, chaplain, sisters, and nurses (Mrs. Shaw Stewart[16] superintendent), are well chosen and practically zealous. A second sanitarium, on St. George’s Monastery heights, is ready for one hundred and fifty, and rapidly progressing. Good water is found in both situations.
In the General Hospital, above the head of the harbour, with its huts adjacent to the main building, about two hundred and fifty patients (chiefly sick) are attended (two huts being given up for cholera). The medical men are especially active there, the orderlies have been much improved in number and quality by recent regulation, the kitchen and chief cook have been recommended by M. Soyer, and the chief purveyor has shown anxiety to make ample provision of requisites, now happily to be found in abundance; but the situation is not a good one; the heat is great, and the crowds frequenting the purveyor’s stores inconveniently near to the sick wards. The sisters and nurses (Miss Warre superintendent) are actively employed, and inhabit a hut adjacent to the main building.
The ship Abundance, lately arrived, has its bakery at work day and night, turning out excellent bread, which will take the place of the sour and mouldy article often sent from the contractors at Constantinople. M. Soyer has invented a most important kind of bread, which seems to unite the advantage of the loaf and the biscuit, and has found out a method of cooking salt rations which makes them most palatable and entirely removes the salt. His receipts have been highly approved, and will be printed by the authority of head-quarters. The camp kitchens he has invented for field hospitals will soon be in activity, as those of the chief hospitals already are; but his suggestions and their application are of so practical and extensive a nature that they will require a second letter from,
Sir, your obedient servant,
C. H. B.
Scutari Barrack-hospital, June 7.
To the Editor of the Times.