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six hundred wounded men were brought in, and the number increased until there were three thousand patients under her immediate charge.
Miss Nightingale, one of the gentlest and tenderest of women, surveyed the scene of confusion and anguish with unruffled mind, and issued her orders with the calmness that comes of certain knowledge of what is best to be done.
If red tape interposed, she quietly cut it. If there was no one near who was authorized to unlock a storehouse, she took a few Turks with her, and stood by while they broke it open.
During the first week her labors were arduous beyond what would have been thought possible for any one; she was known to stand for twenty hours directing the labors of men and women.
Yet, however fatigued she might be, her manner was always serene, and she had a smile or a compassionate word for the suffering as she passed them by.
As soon as the first needs of the men were supplied, she established a washing-house, which she found time herself to superintend.
Before that was done, there had been a washing contract in existence, the conditions of which were so totally neglected by the contractor, that the linen of the whole hospital was foul and rotten.
She established a kitchen, which she also managed to inspect, in which hundreds of gallons of beef-tea, and other liquid food, were prepared every day. She knew precisely how all these things should be done; she was acquainted with the best apparatus for doing them; and she was thus enabled, out of the rough material around her,--that is to say, out of boards, camp-kettles, camp-stores, and blundering Turks,--to create laundries and kitchens, which answered the purpose well, until better could be provided.
She also well understood the art of husbanding skilful labor.
When a few nurses could be spared from the wards of the hospital, she set them to preparing padding for amputated limbs, and other surgical appliances; so that when a thousand wounded suddenly arrived from the battle-field,
S. M. Betts and Company. Hartford, Conn. 1871.
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