In India itself, advance, with Sir John Lawrence at the helm, was rapid. The President and the Secretary of each Sanitary Commission were required to devote their whole attention to the work. They were charged to “consider and afford advice and assistance in all matters relative to the health of the Army, and to supervise the gradual introduction of sanitary improvements in Barracks, Hospitals, and Stations, as well as in Towns in proximity to Military Stations.” Of every step taken, Miss Nightingale was kept informed. Sir John wrote to her frequently to report progress; he described to her the condition of all the Stations he had inspected on his way up to Simla; he applied to her for information on special points. His private secretary, Dr. Hathaway, who also had seen Miss Nightingale before he left England, wrote yet more fully and frequently. The President of the Bengal Commission was Mr. Strachey.[35] He, too, had made Miss Nightingale's acquaintance, and they corresponded at great length. Dr. J. P. Walker, a surgeon in the Indian Army, was in England in December 1863. He wrote to Miss Nightingale, as a devoted follower of her school. He went out to India, was appointed Secretary of the Bengal Commission, and at every stage consulted her and reported to her. Mr. R. J. Ellis, President of the Madras Commission, and Dr. Leith, President of the Bombay one, also corresponded with her. To any official in India, from the Governor-General downwards, who was ready to listen, Miss Nightingale had much to say. The correspondence with Sir John Lawrence is the most interesting:—

(Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale.) Simleh, June 12 [1864]. It was truly kind of you to write and give me so nice an account of my children.… What an exciting time must Garibaldi's visit to England have been. He is indeed a noble fellow, and fully worthy of all our sympathies. I only trust that he will be persuaded to keep quiet and bide his time. A good day for his country, if the people only deserve it, must surely come. I am doing what I can to put things in order out here; but it is a very uphill work, and many influences have to be managed and overcome. I often think of the last visit I paid you before leaving England and of your conversation on that occasion. You will recollect how much I dwelt on the difficulties which meet one on every side. These have been exemplified in a way I could scarcely understand or anticipate, by the good folks of England really believing that I had sanctioned an attack on the religion of the Hindoos, because I desired to improve the health of the people in Calcutta!

(Miss Nightingale to Sir John Lawrence.) 32 South Street, Sept. 26 [1864]. My dear Sir John Lawrence—I always feel it a kind of presumption in me to write to you—and a kind of wonder at your permitting it. I always feel that you are the greatest figure in history, and yours the greatest work in history, in modern times. But that is my very reason. We have but one Sir John Lawrence. Your Bengal Sanitary Commission is doing its work, like men—like martyrs, in fact,—and what a[51] work it is! All we have in Europe is mere child's play to it. Health is the product of civilization, i.e. of real civilization. In Europe we have a kind of civilization to proceed upon. In India your work represents, not only diminished Mortality as with us, but increase of energy, increase of power of the populations. I always feel, as if God had said: mankind is to create mankind. In this sense you are the greatest creator of mankind in modern history.…

Would there be any impropriety in your Sanitary Commissions sending copies of their printed Minutes to the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission here, through the India Office—merely for information? As far as your Bengal Commission goes: these men don't want urging: they have not now to be taught. Anything which might even appear to interfere with the responsibilities of your Commissions, unless at their own request, is not only undesirable: but, as far as the Bengal Commn. is concerned, useless. But, if you saw no objection to sending the Minutes for information to the War Office Commission here, I am sure they would very much like it. Or, if that would be too formal and official (as regards the India Office here), if they, the Minutes, might be sent to me, with permission to shew them to one or two, such as Lord Stanley (our late Chairman of the Royal Commission), Dr. Sutherland, and Capt. Galton, of the War Office, &c., it would answer the same purpose. The India Office here does not shew now the least jealousy of the Barrack and Hospl. (War Office) Commission. On the contrary, one can scarcely help smiling at the small things it is glad to throw off its responsibility for upon said Commission.

There are three glaring (tho' lesser) evils in Calcutta about which I know you have been employed—lesser tho' they are—and your attention and Dr. Hathaway's have been aroused by them. These are: (1) The Police Hospitals (or state of Hospl. accommodation) for sick poor at Calcutta. The Police establishments seem about as bad as possible. Indeed the poor wretches are brought in mostly to die. The Parisian system of relief is very good: every Police station at Paris has means of temporary help in cases of emergency until the sufferers can be removed to Hospital. Some such arrangement with a thorough reform of the Hospitals, and such additional accommodation as may be wanted, might meet Calcutta's case.

(2) The condition of Jails and Lunatic Asylums in India. Certainly it is not for me to draw your attention or Dr. Hathaway's to this. Probably he knows more about them than any man living. The reports and recommendations of one or two of the Jail Inspectors shew that they want experience: as I am sure Dr. Hathaway will agree with me. Perhaps we might help[52] you by sending out such Reports on the subject as may be useful.

(3) The seamen at the great Ports. You have already done so much. But Rome can't be built in a day. Bad water, bad food bought in Bazaars, and bad drinks cause a vast amount of disease and death. Self-supporting Institutions, such as our Sailors' Homes (of which, indeed, I believe you have already founded more than one), would give the men wholesome food and drink, and lodgings and day-rooms at little cost. So many men perish for want of this kind of accommodation at Calcutta, where the evil seems greatest.

It seems to me so base to be writing while you are doing. Oh that I could come out to Calcutta and organize at least the Hospital accommodation for the poor wretches in the streets. There is nothing I should like so much. But it is nonsense to wish for what is an impossibility. I am sure you will be glad to hear that one of my life-long wishes, viz. the nursing of Workhouse Infirmaries by proper Nurses, is about to be fulfilled. By the munificence of a Liverpool man (who actually gives £1200 a year for the object, but desires not to be named), we undertake next month the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary (of 1000 beds)—the first Workhouse that ever has been nursed—with 15 Head Nurses, trained by ourselves, and a Lady (Volunteer) Matron (who underwent a most serious course of training at our Nurses' School at St. Thomas' Hospital), 15 Assistants, and 52 ex-pauper women, whom we are to train as Nurses.[36] I am sure it is not for us to talk of Civilization. For I have seen, in our English Workhouse Infirmaries, neglect, cruelty, and malversation such as can scarcely be surpassed in semi-barbarous countries. And it was then I felt I must found a school for Nurses for Workhouses, &c. The opportunity has come too late for me to do the Workhouse Nursing myself. But, so it is well done, we care not how. I think with the greatest satisfaction upon your re-union with Lady Lawrence and (some of) your children. God bless you.—I am yours devotedly, Florence Nightingale.

P.S.—The Calcutta Municipality does not seem yet to have wakened up to a sense of its existence. It does not know that it exists: much less, what it exists for. Still, you are conquering India anew by civilization, taking possession of the Empire for the first time by knowledge instead of by the sword.—F. N.

The Commander-in-Chief in India, Sir Hugh Rose (Lord Strathnairn) was hardly less helpful in the cause than the Governor-General. The War Office had sent to him, through the Horse Guards, a letter inviting his attention to the regimental recommendations in the Royal Commission's Report. His reply was most sympathetic, and his period of command was marked, amongst other things, by two reforms specially near to Miss Nightingale's desires: he introduced regimental workshops and soldiers' gardens in cantonments. The War Office forwarded his letter to Miss Nightingale. “It is quite worth while,” she wrote in reply (Aug. 11, 1864), “all that has been suffered,—to have this letter from Sir Hugh Rose. And I forgive everybody everything.” “I sing for joy every day,” she had written previously (June 6), “at Sir John Lawrence's Government.” She made public thanksgiving. To the Social Science Congress at Edinburgh in October 1863, she had contributed a paper, entitled, “How People may Live and not Die in India,” in which she gave, in concise and popular form, a résumé of the Royal Commission's Report. The reading of her paper had been followed by “Three Cheers for Florence Nightingale.” She now (Aug. 1864) republished the Paper, with a Preface, in which, as it were, she gave “Three Cheers for Sir John Lawrence.” She described how the Commissions of Health had been appointed in India, and how they had now been put in possession of all the more recent results of sanitary works and measures which had been of use at home. Then she turned to the military authorities, and described how “several of the worst personal causes of ill-health to which the soldier was in former times exposed have been, or are being, removed.” “The men,” she wrote, “have begun to find out that it is better to work than to sleep and drink, even during the heat of the day. One regiment marching into a Station, where cholera had been raging for two years, were chaffed by the regiments marching out, and told they would never come out of it alive. The men of the entering battalion answered, they would see; we won't have cholera, they think. And they made gardens with such good effect that they had the pleasure, not only of eating their own vegetables, but of being paid for them too by the Commissariat. And this in a soil which no regiment had been able to cultivate before. And not a man had cholera. These good soldiers fought against disease, too, by workshops and gymnasia.”[37] She gave account of trades, savings' banks, games, libraries; noting what had been done and what yet remained to be done. “In the meantime the regulation two drams have been reduced to one. A Legislative Act imposes a heavy fine or imprisonment on the illicit sale of spirits near cantonments. Where there are recreation rooms, refreshments (prices all marked) are spread on a nice clean table.” All these things, which in 1864 were new or exceptional, became in later years well-established and the rule. The main causes of disease among the Army in India were, however, as Miss Nightingale went on to say, want of drainage, want of proper water-supply, want of proper barracks and hospitals. But in these respects she had set the reformers to a work which has continued from that day to this.