Florence Nightingale: A Biography

by Annie Matheson

“We are very lucky in our medical heads. Two of them are brutes and four are angels—for this is a work which makes either angels or devils of men, and of women too. As for the assistants, they are all cubs, and will, while a man is breathing his last breath under the knife, lament the ‘annoyance of being called up from their dinners by such a fresh influx of wounded.’ But unlicked cubs grow up into good old bears, though I don’t know how; for certain it is, the old bears are good. We have now four miles of beds and not eighteen inches apart.

“We have our quarters in one tower of the barracks, and all this fresh influx has been laid down between us and the main guard, in two corridors, with a line of beds down each side, just room for one person to pass between, and four wards. Yet in the midst of this appalling horror (we are steeped up to our necks in blood) there is good—and I can truly say, like St. Peter, ‘It is good for us to be here’—though I doubt whether, if St. Peter had been there, he would have said so.”

Meanwhile England, stirred to its depths by the accounts given by Mr. William Howard Russell, of the sufferings of our soldiers, had begged the Times, in whose pages his letters appeared, to receive funds and send them out by the hand of Mr. Macdonald, a man of vigour, firmness, and good sense, and “loyally devoted to his duty.” Before leaving England, he saw the Inspector-General of the army, Dr. Andrew Smith, and also the Duke of Newcastle, but was assured that Government had already provided so amply for the sick and wounded that his fund was not likely to be needed. When he reached the Bosphorus all the official people there talked to him in the same strain. But there leaked out through an officer on duty one little fact that showed how much such assurances were worth.

It seemed that the 39th Regiment was actually on its way to the severities of a Crimean winter with only the light summer clothing that would be worn in hot countries. Happily, the surgeon of the regiment appealed to Mr. Macdonald, and, more happily still, Mr. Macdonald dared to go beyond his exact instructions and give help out of his fund which might prevent illness, instead of waiting for the moment when death was already at the door. He went into the markets of Constantinople and bought then and there a suit of flannels or other woollens for every man in that regiment.

Mr. Macdonald saw that he must be ready to offer help, or red tape and loyalty together would seal the lips of men in the service, lest they should seem to be casting a slur on the army administration.

There is humour of the grimmest kind in what resulted. The chief of the Scutari hospitals told him “nothing was wanted,” and on pushing his inquiry with a yet more distinguished personage, he was actually advised to spend the money on building a church at Pera!

“Yet at that very time,” says Kinglake, “wants so dire as to include want of hospital furniture and of shirts for the patients, and of the commonest means for obtaining cleanliness, were afflicting our stricken soldiery in the hospitals.”

The Pera proposal—rightly described as “astounding”—led to an interview with the Lady-in-Chief. Tears and laughter must have met in her heart as she heard this absurdity, and away she took him—money as well—to the very centre of her commissariat, to see for himself the daily demands and the gaping need—furniture, pillows, sheets, shirts—endless appliances and drugs—that need seemed truly endless, and many hours daily he spent with her in the Nurses’ Tower, taking down lists of orders for the storekeepers in Constantinople. Here was the right help at last—not pretty mufflers for men in need of shirts, nor fine cambric for stout bed-linen.

However, from the Lady-in-Chief Mr. Macdonald soon learned the truth, and the course he then took was one of the simplest kind, but it worked a mighty change. He bought the things needed, and the authorities, succumbing at last to this excruciating form of demonstration, had to witness the supply of wants which before they had refused to confess. So now, besides using the stores which she had at her own command, the Lady-in-Chief could impart wants felt in our hospitals to Mr. Macdonald with the certainty that he would hasten to meet them by applying what was called the “Times Fund” in purchasing the articles needed.