Nursing      

(Material for this page is continually being researched and the page revised.  Latest revision, 6 June, 2005.)

        In the next few minutes, you will read about some remarkable women who sacrificed themselves, often placing themselves in harms way, in order to comfort and tend to the soldiers around them.  In today's modern world, exploits of dedicated women have become commonplace.  We are not surprised to find women in leading roles, standing toe-to-toe with men.  

        However, in the 1850s, women were expected to remain in their "places".  Nursing was considered a second rate vocation, and in fact, Florence Nightingale's parents were appalled by her wish to enter this field.  To travel half way around the world, and to visit and remain in battle areas, were not something that the average Victorian woman  contemplated in 1855.  The fact that the women of whom you are about to read did these things, make them heroines to us now, but raised many an eyelid in Victorian England.  

        While the culture in Russia was somewhat different, Praskovya Ivanovna Grafova too confronted an atmosphere of suspicion.  Additionally, the Sisters of Mercy of Kinsale, Ireland left the safety of their convent and they too served mankind in its time of need.  Information on Praskovya Ivanovna Grafova and  the Sisters of Mercy will be added to this page as soon as the research has been completed.

        God bless all of them for what they did.

• Mary Seacole 

• Florence Nightingale

• Sisters of Mercy, (Catholic) Kinsale, Ireland   (to be completed)

• Praskovya Ivanovna Grafova, of the (Orthodox) Sisters of the Holy Cross  (being researched)

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Mary Seacole, 1805-1881

        A Creole, Mary Jane Grant Seacole was born circa 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica of a Scottish army officer and a free black boardinghouse keeper. Little is known of her childhood, but she received training in herbal medicine from her mother, whom Mary described as "an admirable doctress". Widowed soon after marrying Mr. Seacole, Mary went to Panama during the early 1850s to help her brother manage his hotel and store.   When cholera struck there, and medical doctors were not available, she succeeded in saving some of the patients by the use of herbal medicine.

        By early 1853, having returned to Jamaica, Mary was again offering her services in another medical emergency.  This time it was yellow fever.  Her home soon filled with British officers and their wives and children.  Soon thereafter, the medical authorities, becoming overwhelmed by the suffering and lack of help, sent for Mary in order that she provide nurses for the sick in camp.  Going to the British camp, she worked feverishly but little could be done to mitigate the severity of the epidemic.

        Returning to Panama in late 1853, she opened a store in Colon and remained there for three months.  Much bloodshed occurred between the natives and passing strangers, and Mary soon decided to go to the goldfields at Escribanos and devote her time to some prospecting for gold and silver, but finding only fools gold, waste, and lawlessness  While in the goldfields, Mary kept her medical skills sharpened, assisting the mining company's doctor. 

        Tiring of this existence, and disgusted by what she perceived as American interference in the area, Mary left Escribanos stopped briefly in Colon, then traveled directly to London.  Before leaving Jamaica, Russia and Turkey had begun what has become known as the Crimean War, and by March of 1854 England and France had joined the conflict.  Desiring to join the British army in the Crimea, Mary visited numerous military and civilian departments in London trying to obtain official approval. Failing in this, she finally decided to obtain passage on her own to Balaklava, leaving London on 25 January, 1855 and sailing aboard the screw-steamer Hollander as far as Constantinople.

         Arriving safely in Constantinople, Mary crossed the straights to Scutari and met with Florence Nightingale.  Contrary to reports, Mary was not dismissed by Ms Nightingale, and only requested a room for the night which was provided.  Realizing that she was more needed at the front than in Scutari, Mary continued on to Balaklava on the Medora, arriving during the winter of 1855 in the midst the carnage of war. 

        Having brought stores with her on board ship, Mary spent the next few weeks getting then ashore, attending to the wounded lying around the wharf awaiting transport to Scutari, and establishing a store in a nearby location called "Spring Hill", which was situated approximately two miles from Balaklava.  At Spring Hill, with the help of the Turks, Mary established the British Hotel, which was a long iron building with several wooden structures nearby.  In the wooden buildings she and  her servants lived, while in the iron structure she served food to the officers and men of the Allied forces.  The second floor held the storerooms.  Livestock consisting of horses, mules, geese, and fowls grazed outside. The complex itself is reported to have cost Mary no less than £800.

       Many of the rank-and-file had serious objections to going into the hospital for anything but urgent reasons, and many times the regimental doctors would send the wounded to Mary to be nursed.  When not engaged in cooking, and tending to the men at Spring Hill, she would visit the nearby hospital taking books and newspapers to the patients.  Moreover, there were times when Mary would fill a bag with lint, bandages, needles, thread, and medicines as well as food and spirits, load them on a mule, and while sometimes under fire from the Russian guns, take herself up the Woronzoff Road toward the day's action.          

"Here lies Mary Seacole, 1805-1881 of Kingston, Jamaica a notable nurse who cared for the sick and wounded in the West Indies, Panama, and on the battlefields of the Crimea. 1854-1856" (Photo D. Rivera)

With war's end, Mary returned to London where she found herself in the public eye.  Having spend all of her fortune in her endeavors in the Crimea, she was destitute.  Friends in England attempted through numerous fund-raising efforts to restore her to financial respectability, but had little success.            In the years following her return, many of the men whom she had helped visited her in London, and she is said to have received French, and Turkish decorations for her wartime service.  In the 1870s, Mary became friends with the Princess of Wales.  Mary died on May 14, 1881.           Mary Seacole is buried in Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, a suburb of London.  Recently, her grave has been refurbished.  The thumbnail to the left was taken in May, 2003.

        For further information on this remarkable woman, read the reprinted version,  Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, Oxford University Press,  ISBN 0-19-505249.   Additionally, visit http://www.maryseacole.com.   Moreover, should you be interested in helping with the Mary Seacole Memorial Fund, visit http://www.maryseacoleappeal.org.uk/. 

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Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910

Courtesy of the Florence Nightingale Museum, London

Fifteen years after the birth of Mary Jane Grant, Florence Nightingale was born in Italy on the 12th of May.  She was named Florence after her birthplace. Florence was taught at home by her Cambridge University educated father, from whom she received an exceptional education. Unlike her female peers, she studied history, philosophy, science, and classical literature, as well as music and the arts. Early on, Florence developed an interest in the social questions of the day. She visited the sick, and became intensely interested in hospitals and nursing.

       When the allies defeated the Russians at the battle of the River Al'ma in September of 1854, reports in The Times criticized the British medical facilities for the wounded. In response, Sidney Herbert, the Minister at War, who knew Florence Nightingale socially and through her work in London, appointed her to oversee the introduction of female nurses into the military hospitals in Turkey. Thus it came to be that this war and Florence Nightingale's involvement in it would forever change the course of nursing education. Additionally, there were War Correspondents at the battle sites who used the telegraph and sent home day by day reports on the process of the battles, the conditions of the troops, and the numbers of wounded and ill. The news of conditions at Scutari, where the wretched men were hospitalized, was considered scandalous back home in England.

 

. Photo by D Rivera

Thus it was that on 4 November 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived, with a party of 38 nurses, at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari (left), a suburb of Constantinople (Istanbul).       What the nurses found was appalling. The soldiers lay on the bare and dirty floor of an abandoned barracks; there were no supplies of any kind. With no forks or knives, the men ate their one meal a day with their hands.

        Moreover, there were times when they did not eat. There were no latrines, and sanitation was impossible. Initially, the doctors did not want the nurses there and did not ask for their help, but within ten days, fresh casualties arrived from the battle of Inkerman and the nurses were feverishly administering to the men.

      The 'Lady-in-Chief', as Florence was called, wrote home on behalf of the soldiers. She acted as a banker, sending the men's wages home to their families, and introduced reading rooms to the hospital. In return, she gained the undying respect of the British soldiers. Florence Nightingale enlisted the help of all the able bodied, including the wounded, camp followers and wives of the men. Soon, latrines were dug, the barracks were cleaned, laundry was done, soldiers were fed and the nurses, at last, were able to give nursing care.

         Florence was a powerful advocate for the soldiers. Within six months of the nurses arrival at Scutari, the site where the wounded and ill soldiers of the Crimean War were housed, the death rate had been reduced from 60% to an amazing 2%. By the end of the war, the death rate had dropped to 1%. Florence Nightingale and her nurses had accomplished the impossible. She became a true hero to the soldiers, and to their families and friends back in England.

Because she made rounds of the soldiers long after everyone else was asleep, the press referred to her as, "The Lady With The Lamp." Florence not only cared for the physical needs of her patients, but she also began to look out for their social welfare. She saw to it that, for the first time, the sick and wounded soldiers received sick pay. The introduction of female nurses to the military hospitals was an outstanding success, and to show the nation's gratitude for her hard work a public subscription was organized in November 1855. The money collected was to enable Florence Nightingale to continue her reform of nursing in the civilian hospitals of Britain.

Photo Courtesy of Ken Horton

    For more information about this remarkable woman and her work, contact The Florence Nightingale Museum, in England.

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