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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    lock hospital has been long in existence, with these ' excellent results,' viz. that 20 per cent, of admis- sions into (military) hospital are from the disease engendered by vice, which is five times as much as exists among the native troops. On the other hand, the enlightened medical officer at Kurrachee has entered a striking protest against the present lock hospitals, and has shown how utterly incompatible at once they are with morality, and how utterly useless in practice. Indeed, common sense is the same as moral sense in these as in other things. As in the kindred vice of drunkenness, Government licenses in order to control vice, and the soldier is more drunken than before. Lately, in one of our own largest seaport towns, —and I understand it is not the only place where such a measure is contemplated, — I was consulted as to the structure of a hospital where Government was going to pay for 15 and for 10 beds for fallen women for the army and for the navy. These are called the ' War Office prostitutes' and the ' Admi- ' ralty prostitutes.' The title is just, and therefore the less agreeable. In this same town a hospital for soldiers' wives only lately exists, although it had been long corresponded about, although several women had been confined in barrack,rooms, several had had fever in consequence, and one, at least, upon testimony of the army medical officer, had died from it, as well as children. With two, or at most three, exceptions, there is no accommodation for sick women and children at any home station.