Note in Regard to the Russian Nurses Employed in the War-Hospitals of the Crimea.
The Russian nurses, in the opinion of their Master, the famous surgeon, Pirogoff, did other things besides what the Army Medical Director-General told the House of Commons they did. But it is to be observed—
In the first place, that much allowance is to be made for the confusion incident to Scotch and Russian surgeons talking French together, and going over many subjects in a very short time.
And in the second, that very likely some extra confusion arose in the minds of our Army Medical Officers from the fact of two entirely different sets of women having served in the Russian War Hospitals, viz.:
(1.) The Sisters of the Elevation of the Cross.
(2.) The “Frauen des Barmherzigen Wittwen Instituts,” (mentioned in a very cold manner in pages 4, 26, and implicitly, 27, of Professor Pirogoff’s pamphlet, “Die Gemeinschaft der Schwestern zur Kreuz-erhöhung. Berlin: 1856”); who are those spoken of at [pp. 22, 23, above].
The Widows were so instituted, about forty years or more ago, by Mary of Wirtemberg, during so many years the venerated Empress-Mother. It is quite possible that in the war-pressure their services proved rather nondescript, they being neither sisters nor nurses, strictly speaking; or perhaps the sole reason why Professor Pirogoff has not one good word for them is, that they were not under his orders.
The Sisters of the Elevation of the Cross were a body of secular women, with a few Sisters of Mercy, formed by the Grand Duchess Helena, and placed by her under the orders of the famous civilian Surgeon Pirogoff, to whom the supreme surgical command in Sevastopol was virtually given. Several things are incidentally mentioned concerning them in his pamphlet, quite inconsistent with the constitution of an ordinary religious order.