Florence Nightingale: A Biography

by Annie Matheson

“The growth of her dominion was rapid, was natural, and not unlike the development of what men call ‘responsible government.’ One of others accepting a task ostensibly subordinate and humble, she yet could not, if she would, divest herself of the authority that belonged to her as a gentlewoman—as a gentlewoman abounding in all the natural gifts, and all the peculiar knowledge required for hospital management. Charged to be in the wards, to smooth the sufferer’s pillow, to give him his food and his medicine as ordered by the medical officers, she could not but speak with cogency of the state of the air which she herself had to breathe; she could not be bidden to acquiesce if the beds she approached were impure; she could scarcely be held to silence if the diet she had been told to administer were not forthcoming; and, whatever her orders, she could hardly be expected to give a sufferer food which she perceived to be bad or unfit. If the males[9] did not quite understand the peculiar contrivances fitted for the preparation of hospital diet, might she not, perhaps, disclose her own knowledge, and show them what to do? Or, if they could not be taught, or imagined that they had not the power to do what was needed, might not she herself compass her object by using the resources which she had at command? Might not she herself found and organize the requisite kitchens, when she knew that the difference between fit and unfit food was one of life and death to the soldier? And again, if she chose, might she not expend her own resources in striving against the foul poisons that surrounded our prostrate soldiery? Rather, far, than that even one man should suffer from those cruel wants which she generously chose to supply, it was well that the State should be humbled, and submit to the taunt which accused it of taking alms from her hand.

“If we learnt that the cause of the evils afflicting our Levantine hospitals was a want of impelling and of governing power, we now see how the want was supplied. In the absence of all constituted authority proving equal to the emergency, there was need—dire need—of a firm, well-intentioned usurper; but amongst the males acting at Scutari there was no one with that resolute will, overstriding law, habit, and custom, which the cruel occasion required; for even Dr. M’Gregor, whose zeal and abilities were admirable, omitted to lay hold, dictatorially, of that commanding authority which—because his chief could not wield it—had fallen into abeyance. The will of the males was always to go on performing their accustomed duties industriously, steadily, faithfully, each labouring to the utmost, and, if need be, even to death (as too often, indeed, was the case), in that groove-going ‘state of life to which it had pleased God to call him.’ The will of the woman, whilst stronger, flew also more straight to the end;[10] for what she almost fiercely sought was—not to make good mere equations between official codes of duty and official acts of obedience, but—overcoming all obstacles, to succour, to save our prostrate soldiery, and turn into a well-ordered hospital the hell—the appalling hell—of the vast barrack wards and corridors. Nature seemed, as it were, to ordain that in such a conjuncture the all-essential power which our cramped, over-disciplined males had chosen to leave unexerted should pass to one who would seize it, should pass to one who could wield it—should pass to the Lady-in-Chief.

“To have power was an essential condition of success in her sacred cause; and of power accordingly she knew and felt the worth, rightly judging that, in all sorts of matters within what she deemed its true range, her word must be law. Like other dictators, she had cast upon her one duty which no one can hope to perform without exciting cavil. For the sake of the cause, she had to maintain her dictatorship, and (on pain of seeing her efforts defeated by anarchical action) to check the growth of authority—of authority in even small matters—if not derived from herself. She was apparently careful in this direction; and, though outwardly calm when provoked, could give strong effect to her anger. On the other hand, when seeing merit in the labours of others, she was ready with generous praise. It was hardly in the nature of things that her sway should excite no jealousies, or that always, hand in hand with the energy which made her great enterprise possible, there should be the cold, accurate justice at which the slower sex aims; but she reigned—painful, heart-rending empire—in a spirit of thorough devotion to the objects of her care, and, upon the whole, with excellent wisdom.

“To all the other sources of power which we have seen her commanding, she added one of a kind less dependent upon her personal qualities. Knowing thoroughly the wants of a hospital, and foreseeing, apparently, that the State might fail to meet them, she had taken care to provide herself with vast quantities of hospital stores, and by drawing upon these to make good the shortcoming of any hampered or lazy official, she not only furnished our soldiery with the things they were needing, but administered to the defaulting administrator a telling, though silent, rebuke; and it would seem that under this discipline the groove-going men winced in agony, for they uttered touching complaints, declaring that the Lady-in-Chief did not choose to give them time (it was always time that the males wanted), and that the moment a want declared itself she made haste to supply it herself.”

Another able writer—a woman—has said that for Miss Nightingale the testing moment of her life met her with the coming of the wagon-loads of wounded men from the battlefield of Inkermann, who were poured into the hospital at Scutari within twenty-four hours of her arrival. Had the sight of all that agony and of the senseless confusion that received it, led the Lady-in-Chief and her nurses to waste their power in rushing hither and thither in disorganized fear of defeat, their very sympathy and emotion dimming their foresight and clouding their brain, the whole story might have been different. But Miss Nightingale was of those who, by a steadfast obedience hour by hour to the voice within, have attained through the long years to a fine mastery of every nerve and muscle of that frail house wherein they dwell. The more critical the occasion, the more her will rose to meet it. She knew she must think of the welfare, not of one, but of thousands; and for tens of thousands she wrought the change from this welter of misery and death to that clean orderliness which for the moment seemed as far away as the unseen heaven. There were many other faithful and devoted nurses in the Crimea, though few, perhaps, so highly skilled; but her name stands alone as that of the high-hearted and daring spirit who made bold to change the evil system of the past when no man else had done anything but either consent to it or bemoan it. She, at least, had never been bound by red tape, and her whole soul rose up in arms at sight of the awful suffering which had been allowed under the shelter of dogged routine.

Before ten days had passed, she had her kitchen ready and was feeding 800 men every day with well-cooked food, and this in spite of the unforeseen and overwhelming numbers in which the new patients had been poured into the hospitals after Balaclava and Inkermann. She had brought out with her, in the Vectis, stores of invalid food, and all sorts of little delicacies surprised the eyes and lips of the hitherto half-starved men. Their gentle nurses brought them beef tea, chicken broth, jelly. They were weak and in great pain, and may be forgiven if their gratitude was, as we are told, often choked with sobs.

Mrs. Tooley tells us of one Crimean veteran, that when he received a basin of arrowroot on his first arrival at the hospital early in the morning, he said to himself, “‘Tommy, me boy, that’s all you’ll get into your inside this blessed day, and think yourself lucky you’ve got that.’ But two hours later, if another of them blessed angels didn’t come entreating of me to have just a little chicken broth! Well, I took that, thinking maybe it was early dinner, and before I had well done wondering what would happen next, round the nurse came again with a bit o’ jelly; and all day long at intervals they kept on bringing me what they called ‘a little nourishment.’ In the evening, Miss Nightingale she came and had a look at me, and says she, ‘I hope you’re feeling better?’ I could have said, ‘Ma’am, I feels as fit as a fightin’ cock,’ but I managed to git out somethin’ a bit more polite.”[11]

The barracks had thirteen “coppers,” and in the old days meat and vegetables had just been tossed into these and boiled together anyhow. It is easy to imagine the greasy mess to which the fevered invalids must have been treated by the time the stuff had been carried round to the hospital.

But now, sometimes in a single day, thirteen gallons of chicken broth, and forty gallons of arrowroot found their way from the new kitchen to the hospital wards.