Besides the group of courageous and indefatigable surgeons, whose names I would like to be able to cite (for, certainly, if to kill men is a title to glory, to nurse them and cure them, often at the risk of one's own life, merits indeed esteem and gratitude), medical students hasten from Bologna, Pisa and other Italian cities. A Canadian surgeon, Dr. Norman Bettun, professor of anatomy in Toronto, comes to assist these devoted men. Besides the people of Lombardy, French, Swiss and Belgian tourists seek to render themselves useful, but their efforts had to be limited to the distribution of oranges, ices, coffee, lemonade and tobacco.
In Plaisance, whose three hospitals are administered by private individuals, and by ladies serving as nurses, one of these last, a young lady, supplicated by her family to renounce her intention to pass her days in the hospital, on account of the contagious fevers there, continued her labors so willingly and with such kindness that she was greatly esteemed by all the soldiers. "She enlivens the hospital," they said.
How valuable, in the cities of Lombardy, would have been some hundreds of voluntary nurses, devoted, experienced and, above all, previously instructed! They would have rallied around themselves the meagre band of assistants and the scattered forces. Not only was time lacking to those who were capable of counselling and guiding; but the necessary knowledge and experience was not possessed by the greater number of those who could offer only personal devotion, which was insufficient and often useless. What, indeed, in spite of their good will, could a handful of persons do in such urgent need? After some weeks the compassionate enthusiasm began to cool and the people, as inexperienced as they were injudicious in their kindness, sometimes brought improper food to the wounded, so that it was necessary to deny them entrance to the churches and hospitals.
Many persons, who would have consented to pass one or two hours a day with the sick, gave up their intention, because a special permission was necessary, which could only be obtained by petitioning the authorities. Strangers disposed to help met with all kinds of unexpected hindrances, of a nature to discourage them. But voluntary hospital workers, well chosen and capable, sent by societies with the sanction of the governments and respected because of an agreement between the belligerents, would have surmounted the difficulties and done incomparably more good.
During the first eight days after the battle the wounded, of whom the physicians said, in low tones, when passing by their beds and shaking their heads: "There is nothing more to be done," received no more attention and died neglected. And is not this very natural when the scarcity of the nurses is compared with the enormous number of the wounded? An inexorable and cruel logic insists that these unfortunate men should be left to perish without further care and without having given to them the precious time that must be reserved for the soldiers who could be cured. They were numerous, however, and not deaf, those unfortunate men on whom was passed such pitiless judgment! Soon they perceive their deserted condition and with a broken and embittered heart gasp out the last breath while no one notices.
The death of many a one among them is rendered more sad and bitter by the proximity, on a cot by his side, of a young soldier, slightly wounded, whose foolish jokes leave him neither peace nor tranquillity. On the other side, one of his companions in misery has just died; and, he dying, must see and hear the funeral ceremony, much too rapidly performed, which shows him in advance his own. Finally, about to die, he sees men, profiting by his weakness, search his knapsack and steal what they desire.
For that dying man there have been, lying in the postoffice for eight days, letters from his family; if he could have had them, they would have been to him a great consolation; he has entreated the nurses to bring them that he may read them before his last hour, but they replied unkindly, that they had not time as there was so much else to do.
Better would it have been for you, poor martyr, if you had perished, struck dead on the field of butchery, in the midst of the splendid abomination which men call "Glory!" Your name, at least, would not have been forgotten, if you had fallen near your colonel defending the flag of your regiment. It would almost have been better for you had you been buried alive by the peasants commissioned for that purpose, when you, unconscious, were carried from the hill of the Cypresses, from the foot of the tower of Solferino or from the plains of Medole. Your agony would not have been long. Now, it is a succession of miseries that you must endure, it is no longer the field of honor that is presented to you, but cold death with all its terrors, and the word "disappeared" for a funeral oration.
What has become of the love of glory which electrified this brave soldier at the commencement of the campaign and during that day at Solferino, when, risking his own life, he so courageously attempted to take the lives of his fellow-creatures, whose blood he ran, with such light feet, to shed? Where is the irresistible allurement? Where the contagious enthusiasm, increased by the odor of powder, by the flourish of trumpets and by the sound of military music, by the noise of cannon and the whistling of bullets which hide the view of danger, suffering and death.
In these many hospitals of Lombardy may be seen at what price is bought that which men so proudly call "Glory," and how dearly this glory costs.