Presently the antiseptic dressings were exhausted altogether, and I had to fall back upon coloured prints from the bazaars for bandages, and to plug the wounds with plain cotton-wool, of which we had a large supply. This was non-absorbent, and naturally when treated in this way the wounds became frightfully repulsive. It was impossible to keep the tissues healthy, and all I could do was to go round on my hands and knees from one man to another, literally scraping the maggots out of the wounds either with my finger or an instrument. The unfortunate men were saturated with blood and pus from their wounds, and covered with maggots which lodged in the festering tissues. Often and often, as I went round the "wards"—save the mark—plodding on almost in despair against the dreadful odds, I have taken the plugging of cotton-wool out of a gaping wound, and found underneath it a nest of maggots, feeding on the flesh of the still living man, who would thank me with a look for temporarily relieving him of the torture.
In one small ward with five beds in it, I had five men who were the finest specimens of humanity that I ever saw in my life. I became greatly attached to them, as they did also to me; and it was pathetic to see their gratitude for the most trifling service. One of them, with his strong aquiline face and piercing eyes, reminded me very much of a statue of Dante which I had seen in the market-place of Verona. My patient had been shot through the thigh. The bone had been dreadfully smashed, and the whole leg was a mass of gangrened flesh. If I could have operated, I might have saved his life; but without antiseptic dressings, and without the possibility of subsequent careful nursing, an operation was out of the question, and I had to watch him suffering day by day dying literally by inches.
In the next bed was an Asiatic Turk, whose wound was a peculiar one. A rifle-bullet had struck the top of his skull, and cut a groove longitudinally from front to back through it. I could do but little for the man, except to keep the wound as clean as possible, and the poor fellow suffered great pain. He used to be continually telling me of his wife and children, in some distant Anatolian village, which he knew he would never see again, and he was very grateful for a sympathetic listener. I was always afraid of brain trouble developing, and after about a week of suffering he became delirious through inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and died at last in fearful convulsions.
Next to him was a man who had been hit in the shoulder by a piece of a shell. The bone was smashed to pieces, and several days after the battle I took a piece of iron as large as a hen's egg from a great hole near the man's armpit. I asked him to let me amputate the arm at the shoulder joint; but he would not let it be done, and he was still alive some weeks afterwards when I finally left Plevna. The fourth man had been shot in the thigh, and the wound had no chance of healing without proper dressing. I used to squeeze out about a pint of matter from it every day. The fifth patient had been shot in the clavicle, and had a huge ragged wound in the shoulder. I used to stuff it with cotton-wool, and try to keep the maggots from collecting in the cavity; but when I took out the plug of wool, there were always maggots underneath it. Four out of the five were dead before I left the town.
In the large room, which contained sixty men, though the space would not properly accommodate more than twenty, I had several cases of blood-poisoning due to the colours "running" in the cheap prints which I was obliged to use for bandages. The dyes got into the wounds, and pyæmia carried off the men like rotting sheep. The food up to this period was still fairly good, and we had plenty of good water.
CHAPTER XI.
THE HORRORS OF THE HOSPITAL.
Some of my Hospital Cases—A Death from Jaundice—Small-pox and Typhoid Fever—Hospital Gangrene—Waiting for the Burial Parties—Horrible Depression—I am slightly wounded—Turkish Florence Nightingales—A Ghastly Case—I am powerless for want of Stores—The Men die off like Sheep—Arrival of a Party of English Doctors—A Welcome Visit—Dr. Bond Moore and Dr. Mackellar—Dr. George Stoker Sick—Interview with Osman Pasha—His Reception of the English Doctors—Osman Pasha's Position—The English Doctors indignant—Osman Pasha justified—A Ride to the Krishin Redoubts—The English Doctors under Fire—My Reasons for leaving Plevna—A Farewell Supper—Mustapha Bey and the Whisky—The Departure of the Wounded—Good-bye to Plevna.
One very peculiar case came under my notice in the principal ward. It was that of a man who had been struck by a spent bullet over the region of the liver. The wound had not penetrated the flesh, and there was nothing but a small, sloughing sore over the liver to indicate the spot where the man had been hit. Two days afterwards he developed acute jaundice, and died in three days. I could not understand it at the time, but it struck me afterwards that the blow from the bullet had ruptured the liver.