A woman's example, and a nation's work : a tribute to Florence Nightingale.

  • Edge, Frederick Milnes.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A woman's example, and a nation's work : a tribute to Florence Nightingale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

    17/94 (page 15)
    first. We wish to prevent the evils that England and France could only investigate and deplore. The war ought to be waged in a spirit of the highest intelligence, humanity, and tenderness for the health, comfort, and safety of our brave troops. And every measure of the Government that shows its sense of this will be eminently popular, strengthen its hands, and redound to its glory at home and abroad. The undersigned are charged with several distinct peti- tions, additional to that of asking for a Commission for the purposes above described, although they would all fall under the duties of that Commission. 1. They ask. that the Secretary of War w^ill order some new rigour in the inspection of volunteer troops, as they are persuaded that, under the present State regulations through- out the country, a great number of under-aged and unsuitable persons are mustered, who are likely to swell the bills of mor- tality in the army to a fearful per-centage, to encumber the hospitals and embarrass the columns. The Committee represent that the Woman's Central Association of Kelief have selected, and are selecting, out of several hundred candidates, one hundred women, suited in all respects to become nurses in the general hospitals of the army. These women the distinguished physicians and surgeons of the various hospitals in New York have undertaken to educate and drill in a most thorough and laborious manner ; and the Committee ask that the War Department consent to receive, on wages, these nurses, in such nvmibers as the exigencies of the campaign may require. It is not proposed that the nurses should advance to the seat of war until directly called for by the Medical Bureau here, nor that the Government should be at any expense until they are actually in service. ****** *' It is believed that a Commission would bring these and other matters of great interest and importance to the health of the troops into the shape of easy and practical adojition. But if no Commission is appointed the Committee pray that the Secretary will order the several suggestions made to be carried into immediate effect, if consistent with the laws of the Department, or possible without the action of Congress.