Then a doubt
occurred to the minds of the men in power, whether all was right in the
Crimea, and whether something might not be done for the sanitary
salvation of the army. They sent a commission, consisting of Dr. John
Sutherland, one of the ablest sanitarians of the kingdom, Dr. Hector
Gavin, and Robert Rawlinson, civil engineer, to the Black Sea, to
inquire into the state of things there, to search out the causes of the
sufferings of the army, and see if there might not be a remedy found and
applied. At the same time, Miss Nightingale and a large corps of
assistants, attendants, and nurses, women of station and culture and
women of hire, went to that terrible scene of misery and death, to aid
in any measures that might be devised to alleviate the condition of the
men. Great abuses and negligence were found; and the causes of disease
were manifest, manifold, and needless. But a reform was at once
instituted; great changes were made in the general management of the
camp and hospitals and in the condition of the soldiers. Disease began
to diminish, the progress of mortality was arrested, and in the course
of a few months the rate of death was as low as among men of the same
ages at home.
This commission made a full report, when they returned, and described
the state of things they found in the Crimea and on the shores of the
Black Sea,--the camps, barracks, huts, tents, food, manner of life, and
general sanitary condition of the troops, their terrible sufferings, and
the means and ways of caring for the sick, the measures of reform which
they had proposed and carried out, and their effects on the health of
the men.
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