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 I
thought that this week we would look at the subject of giving
care to the sick, the wounded, and the infirm. This topic varies
in its aspects: the care given by the parent to a sick child,
or by the young person to an aged parent is one aspect; the care
given by professionals to their patients is another. The care
given to a wounded soldier on the battlefield often lies somewhere
between.
I have decided
to concentrate on the aspect of nursing, rather than the aspect
that might be called doctoring, although I do understand that
this distinction is often arbitrary.
William Shakespeare
(1564 – 1616) has an interesting take on this in one of his most
famous speeches, in Act II, scene I, of King Richard II:
This royal
throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, the seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in a silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth.
Oliver Goldsmith
(1728 – 1774) used a similar phrase, in line 356 of The Traveller,
written in 1764, again speaking of England:
The land
of scholars, and the nurse of arms.
Shakespeare
again, in Act III, scene i, of King Henry the Fourth, Part
II:
O sleep!
O gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
In Act V,
scene ii of King Henry V:
The naked,
poor, and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births.
And, finally,
in Act V, scene ii, of Antony and Cleopatra:
Dost thou
not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?
John Milton
(1608 – 1674), in his poem Comus, line 373, has this
delightful image:
Virtue
could see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, through sun and moon
Were in that sea sunk. And Wisdom’s self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where, with her best nurse Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.
 Sir
Walter Scott (1771 – 1832) is famous as Scotland’s leading writer
of the nineteenth century. Much of his poetry was written in rhymed
couplets (this can become a bit tedious!), although The Lady
of the Lake is an obvious exception. One of his earlier long
poems, written in 1805, was The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Book VI of this opens with some well-known lines:
Breathes
there a man, with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said,
This is my own, my native land!
The second
stanza begins:
O Caledonia!
stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Thomas Moore
(1779 – 1852) in Lalla Rookh (1817) wrote:
I never
nurs’d a dear gazelle
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die.
George Gordon,
Lord Byron (1788 – 1824) in Don Juan has this to say
about men’s attitude to women:
Alas!
the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,
And if 't is lost, life hath no
more to bring
To them but mockeries of the past alone,
And their revenge is as the tiger's
spring,
Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real
Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel.
They are
right; for man, to man so oft unjust,
Is always so to women; one sole
bond
Awaits them, treachery is all their trust;
Taught to conceal, their bursting
hearts despond
Over their idol, till some wealthier lust
Buys them in marriage- and what
rests beyond?
A thankless husband, next a faithless lover,
Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all's over.
Some take
a lover, some take drams or prayers,
Some mind their household, others
dissipation,
Some run away, and but exchange their cares,
Losing the advantage of a virtuous
station;
Few changes e'er can better their affairs,
Theirs being an unnatural situation,
From the dull palace to the dirty hovel:
Some play the devil, and then write a novel.
James Russell
Lowell (1819 – 1891) was an interesting person, and in a later
column we may write more about him. For today, only a brief quotation
from Columbus, which he wrote in 1844:
The nurse
of full-grown souls is solitude.
 Of
course, the major nineteenth-century figure for a column on nurses
and nursing has to be Florence Nightingale. The biographical details
that follow are largely drawn from the Florence
Nightingale Museum web page, and the Victorian
Web.
Florence
Nightingale was born on 12 May, 1820 at the Villa La Columbaia
in Florence; she was named after the city of her birth. Her father,
William Edward Nightingale (1794-1874), was son of William Shore,
a Sheffield banker. When Nightingale came of age on 21 February,
1815 he inherited the Derbyshire estates at Lea Hurst and Woodend
in Derbyshire from, and assumed the surname of Peter Nightingale,
his mother's uncle. On 1 June, 1818 he married Frances Smith,
a strong supporter of the abolition of slavery. They had two daughters,
Parthenope and Florence. "Parthe" was given the classical
name of Naples, where she was born.
Florence
Nightingale was brought up at Lea Hall, in 1825 the family moved
to Lea Hurst which Nightingale had just built. In 1826 he also
bought Embley Park, in Hampshire, and in 1828 he became High Sheriff
of the county. The family invariably spent the summer at Lea Hurst
and the winter at Embley Park, occasionally visiting London. Florence
Nightingale had a broad education and came to dislike the lack
of opportunity for females in her social circle. She began to
visit the poor and became very interested in looking after those
who were ill. She visited hospitals in London and around the country
to investigate possible occupations for women there. However,
nursing was seen as employment that needed neither study nor intelligence;
nurses were considered to be little more than prostitutes at that
time.
Nightingale's
hospital visits began in 1844 and continued for eleven years.
She spent the winter and spring of 1849-50 in Egypt with family
friends; on the journey from Paris she met two St. Vincent de
Paul sisters who gave her an introduction to their convent at
Alexandria. Nightingale saw that the disciplined and well-organised
Sisters made better nurses than women in England. Between 31 July
and 13 August 1850, Nightingale made her first visit to the Institute
of Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserswerth. The institute had been
founded for the care of the destitute in 1833 and had grown into
a training school for women teachers and nurses. Her visit convinced
Nightingale of the possibilities of making nursing a vocation
for ladies. In 1851 she spent four months at Kaiserswerth, training
as a sick nurse. When she returned home, she undertook more visits
to London hospitals; in the autumn of 1852 she inspected hospitals
in Edinburgh and Dublin. In 1853 she accepted her first administrative
post when she became superintendent of the Hospital for Invalid
Gentlewomen.
 In
March 1854 the Crimean War broke out and the reports of the sufferings
of the sick and wounded in the English camps created anger in
Britain. William Russell, The Times correspondent, described
the terrible neglect of the wounded, and pointed to the differences
between the facilities provided for British and French soldiers.
He asked: ‘Are there no devoted women among us, able and willing
to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of
the East in the hospitals of Scutari? Are none of the daughters
of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work
of mercy? Must we fall so far below the French in self-sacrifice
and devotedness?’ (The Times, 15 and 22nd September 1854).
Nightingale offered her services to the War Office on 14 October
but her friend Sidney Herbert, the Secretary for War, had already
written to her, suggesting that she should go out to the Crimea.
Herbert said that she would 'have plenary authority over all the
nurses and ... the fullest assistance and co-operation from the
medical staff'. He also promised 'unlimited power of drawing on
the government for whatever you think requisite for the success
of your mission'.
Nightingale
embarked for the Crimea on 21 October with thirty-eight nurses:
ten Roman Catholic Sisters, eight Anglican Sisters of Mercy, six
nurses from St. John's Institute, and fourteen from various hospitals.
Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, also went with her. Nightingale refused
the offer of service by Mary Seacole. They reached Scutari on
4 November -- the eve of the battle of Inkerman. Nightingale's
official title was “Superintendent of the Female Nurses in the
Hospitals in the East”; but she came to be known generally as
“The Lady-in-Chief.”
Her headquarters
were in the barrack hospital at Scutari, a huge, filthy place
where infection was rife. Stores had not got beyond Varna or had
been lost at sea. Descriptions from Nightingale and her nurses
give some idea of the conditions there:
"There
were no vessels for water or utensils of any kind; no soap,
towels, or clothes, no hospital clothes; the men lying in their
uniforms, stiff with gore and covered with filth to a degree
and of a kind no one could write about; their persons covered
with vermin... We have not seen a drop of milk, and the
bread is extremely sour. The butter is most filthy; it is Irish
butter in a state of decomposition; and the meat is more like
moist leather than food. Potatoes we are waiting for, until
they arrive from France..."
The military
and medical authorities at Scutari viewed Nightingale's intervention
as a reflection on themselves. Many of her own volunteers were
inexperienced, and the behaviour of the orderlies was offensive
to the women. However, before the end of 1854, Nightingale and
her nurses had brought the Scutari hospital into better order.
The relief fund organised by The Times sent out stores;
other voluntary associations at home were helpful. In December
46 more nurses went to the Crimea. Nightingale quickly established
a vast kitchen and a laundry; she looked after the soldiers' wives
and children, and provided daily necessities for them. She was
on her feet for twenty hours a day and her nurses were also overworked;
however, she was the only woman whom she allowed to be in the
wards after eight at night, when the other nurses' places were
taken by orderlies. The wounded men called her ‘The Lady of the
Lamp.’ Longfellow tried to
express the feelings for Nightingale in his poem, Santa
Filomena (published in November 1857). This is our first
Poem of this Week.
Early in
1855, because of the defects in the sanitation system, there was
a huge increase in the number of cases of cholera and typhus fever
among Nightingale's patients. Seven of the army doctors and three
of the nurses died. Frost-bite and dysentery from exposure in
the trenches before Sevastopol made the wards fuller than before.
There were over 2000 sick and wounded in the hospital and in February
1855 the death-rate rose to 42%. The War Office ordered the sanitary
commissioners at Scutari to carry out sanitary reforms immediately,
after which the death-rate declined rapidly until in June it had
fallen to 2%.
In May 1855
Nightingale visited the hospitals at and near Balaclava along
with Mr. Bracebridge and Alexis Soyer. Nightingale was felled
by Crimean fever and was dangerously ill for twelve days. Early
in June she returned to Scutari and resumed her work there. In
addition to her nursing work she tried to provide reading and
recreation rooms for the men and their families. In March 1856
she returned to Balaclava and remained there until July when the
hospitals were closed. She returned to England privately in August
1856, in a French ship. She entered England unnoticed and went
home to Lea Hurst.
In September
1856 Nightingale visited Queen Victoria at Balmoral and told the
Queen and Prince Albert about everything that 'affects our present
military hospital system and the reforms that are needed'. By
November 1855, a year before the war ended, a Nightingale Fund
had been set up to found a training school for nurses. This was
the only recognition of her services of which Nightingale would
approve.
By 1860,
£50,000 had been collected and the Nightingale School and
Home for Nurses was established at St. Thomas's Hospital. Nightingale's
health and other occupations prevented her from accepting the
post of superintendent but she watched the progress of the new
institution with practical interest. She was able to use her experiences
in the Crimea for the benefit of the nursing profession.
She settled
in London and lived the retired life of an invalid, although she
spent a great deal of time offering advice and encouragement through
her writing and also verbally. In 1857 she issued an exhaustive
and confidential report on the workings of the army medical departments
in the Crimea and in 1858 she published Notes on Matters affecting
the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British
Army. In 1858 a Commission was appointed to inquire into
the sanitary condition of the army: it set a high value on her
evidence. In 1859 an army medical college was opened at Chatham
and the first military hospital was established in Woolwich in
1861. During the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War
of 1870-1 her advice was sought by the respective governments.
Nightingale was involved in establishing the East London Nursing
Society (1868), the Workhouse Nursing Association and National
Society for providing Trained Nurses for the Poor (1874) and the
Queen's Jubilee Nursing Institute (1890).
When the
Indian Mutiny broke out in 1857 Nightingale offered to leave for
India immediately if there was anything she could do. Her services
were not required but she became interested in the sanitary condition
of the army and people there. From her work, a Sanitary Department
was established in the Indian government. She became familiar
with many facets of Indian life and demanded that there should
be improvements in health and sanitation there. She did not visit
India, but wrote papers on the causes of famine, the need of irrigation
and the poverty of the people. In 1890 she contributed a paper
on village sanitation in India. Her book, Notes on Nursing first
appeared in 1860 and was reprinted many times during in her lifetime.
She received
the Order of Merit in 1907, and in 1908 she was awarded the Freedom
of the City of London. She had already received the German order
of the Cross of Merit and the French gold medal of Secours aux
Blessés Militaires. On 10 May, 1910 she was presented with
the badge of honour of the Norwegian Red Cross Society. Nightingale
died in South Street, Park Lane, London, on 13 August 1910 at
the age of ninety and was buried on 20 August in the family plot
at East Wellow, Hampshire. An offer of burial in Westminster Abbey
was refused by her relatives. Memorial services took place in
St. Paul's Cathedral and Liverpool Cathedral, among many other
places.
This is one
of the many broadsides that circulated after Florence Nightingale
achieved fame in the Crimean. A broadside was a song or poem printed
on a sheet of paper and sold on the street for a very small sum;
they were often about current events.
On a dark
lonely night on the Crimea’s dread shore
There had been bloodshed and strife on the morning before,
The dead and the dying lay bleeding around,
Some crying for help – there’s none to be found;
And God in his mercy he pity’d their cries,
And the soldier so cheerful in the morning do rise,
So forward my lads, may your hearts never fail,
You’re cheered by the presence of Miss Nightingale.
Now God
sent this woman to succour the brave,
Some thousands she saved from an untimely grave,
Her eyes beam with pleasure, she’s bounteous and good,
The wants of the wounded are by her understood.
With fever some brought in with life almost gone,
Some with mangled limbs, some to fragments is torn
But they keep up their spirits, their hearts never fail
Now they’re cheer’d by presence of sweet Miss F. Nightingale.
Her heart
it means good – for no bounty she’ll take
She’d lay down her life for the poor soldier’s sake,
She pray’d for the dying, gave peace to the brave,
She felt that a soldier had a soul to be saved;
The wounded they lov’d her, as it has been seen,
She’s the soldier’s preserver they call her their queen.
May God give her strength, & her heart never fail,
One of heaven’s best gifts is Miss Nightingale.
The wives
of the wounded how thankful were they
Their husbands were car’d for – now happy & gay,
Whate’er her country, thi gift God has given,
The soldiers all said she was an angel from Heaven.
Sing praise to this woman, deny it who can!
All females were sent for the comfort of man,
Let’s hope no more against them you’ll rail,
Use them well & they’ll prove like Miss Nightingale.
Here is a
poem from the famous English satirical magazine Punch
published during the time of the Crimean War. The title is The
Nightingale's Song to the Sick Soldier. I have not been able
to identify either the exact date or the author.
Listen,
soldier, to the tale of the tender nightingale,
'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,
Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathetic strain,
With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.
Singing
bandages and lint; salve and cerate without stint,
Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,
And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served
out,
With alacrity and promptitude of motion.
Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands
How to manage every sort of application,
From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach
The way to make a poppy fomentation.
Singing
pillow for you, smoothed; smart and ache and anguish smoothed,
By the readiness of feminine invention;
Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,
With a cheerful and considerate attention.
Singing
succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,
Hear the nightingale that's come to the Crimea,
'Tis a nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,
To carry out so gallant an idea.
 The
poet best known as a nurse was Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892). He
did not see service in the Civil War, because he was 42 years
old when Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861. However, his brother
George was a lieutenant in the Union Army, and was listed as wounded
in Virginia in 1862. Walt took over the family responsibility
of going to the battlefront to find him. As James E. Miller, Jr.
writes in his introduction to Complete Poetry and Selected
Prose by Walt Whitman (1959): “Shocked by the sights he saw
not only near the front lines but in Washington, D. C., where
the suffering of large numbers of sick and wounded was intensified
by neglect, Whitman stayed on, after finding his brother, to help
in the immense task of caring for the hurt and the maimed. Whitman
the ‘wound dresser’ regularly made the rounds of hospitals, comforting
those he could, writing letters home for the disabled, distributing
scarce personal items such as note paper, stamped envelopes, reading
matter.”
In an earlier
piece in this series, I used Whitman’s poem A
Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim. Our second
poem of this week is also from the section of Leaves of Grass
called Drum-Taps. It is called The
Wound-Dresser.
 I
have used the poetry of the First World War poets a couple of
times before in this series, but the examples I used were from
combatants. In fact, during the First World War, and the immediately
preceding Spanish Civil War, a number of English-speaking poets
volunteered for ambulance duty, and in some cases wrote about
their experiences. One of these was Robert William Service (1874
– 1958). You may remember him from earlier articles, where we
looked at his poems deriving from his time in the Yukon – The
Shooting of Dan McGrew is an example. However, in 1912,
having finished Rhymes of a Rolling Stone he accepted
the job of war correspondent in the Balkan war. During his travels
in Europe Service he married a woman from Paris and purchased
a villa in Brittany. In the First World War he served in an America
volunteer ambulance unit and became a war correspondent for the
Canadian government. He wrote of his experiences in the war in
Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. Here is an example – The
Stretcher Bearer:
My stretcher
is one scarlet stain,
And as I tries to scrape it clean,
I tell you wot -- I'm sick with pain
For all I've 'eard, for all I've
seen;
Around me is the 'ellish night,
And as the war's red rim I trace,
I wonder if in 'Eaven's height,
Our God don't turn away 'Is Face.
I don't
care 'oose the Crime may be;
I 'olds no brief for kin or clan;
I 'ymns no 'ate: I only see
As man destroys his brother man;
I waves no flag: I only know,
As 'ere beside the dead I wait,
A million 'earts is weighed with woe,
A million 'omes is desolate.
In drippin'
darkness, far and near,
All night I've sought them woeful
ones.
Dawn shudders up and still I 'ear
The crimson chorus of the guns.
Look! like a ball of blood the sun
'Angs o'er the scene of wrath
and wrong. . . .
"Quick! Stretcher-bearers on the run!"
O Prince of Peace! 'ow long, 'ow
long?
Our third
poem of his week is a longer poem from this collection, The
Odyssey of 'Erbert 'Iggins, in which two medics carry the
wounded from the battlefield.
So there
we are. The concept of nursing goes from the care of babies to
the nightmare of the battlefield, but the nobility of the ability
of human beings to take care of the nurturing and the amelioration
of the suffering of others is something which deserves the admiration
– and gratitude! – of us all.
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