Once Nightingale arrived in the Crimea, she found herself amid utter chaos in the hospital at Scutari: there was no furniture, food, cooking utensils, blankets or beds; rats and fleas were constant problems. Though she was able to get basins of milkless tea from the hospital, the same basin was used by the soldiers for washing, eating and drinking. She was the only person with funds and the authority to rectify this bleak situation. She requested eating utensils, shirts, sheets, blankets, stuffed bags for mattresses, operating tables, screens and clean linen. She soon set up a laundry and a
...more
