Observations on the evidence contained in the stational reports submitted to her by the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India / by Florence Nightingale.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the evidence contained in the stational reports submitted to her by the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India / by Florence Nightingale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    with by Sir John Lawrence from an officer of a native regiment of guides regarding the native wives. ' Mind you look after these women carefully, ' and do not let them be in distress; several of their ' husbands, men of rank, have been killed.' The request was loyally fulfilled, and as loyally appre- ciated by the men. At Dumdum 554 women and 770 children were crowded together without care or supervision, and the proportion which fell victims to intemperance, immorality, filth, and foul air was more than six times, in either case, the ordinary mortality of Avomen and children in Bengal. The fathers and husbands were fighting or dead in our battles. This massacre killed as many as it is supposed fell by the hands of the mutineers. It is singular that in no one part of the Dumdum report does the slightest allusion occur to this tragedy, making one think that it cannot be an isolated case. And it appears to have arisen solely from the absence of any regulation as to the care of soldiers' wives and children in the husbands' and fathers' absence. Families go to India, and as long as the regiment remains fixed things may go on pretty well, provided there are decent separate quarters and a careful, kindly commanding officer. But send the regiment on active service, and there is no way of caring for the families. They take their chance under circumstances where they cannot help themselves. Or they are all huddled together, as at Dumdum, with this result, that while the