THE first organized attempt to mitigate the horrors of war, to prevent disease and save the lives of those engaged in military service by sanitary measures and a more careful nursing of the sick and wounded, was made by a commission appointed by the British Government during the Crimean war, to inquire into the terrible mortality from disease that attended the British army at Sebastopol, and to apply the needed remedies. It was as a part of this great work that the heroic young Englishwoman, Florence Nightingale, with her army of nurses, went to the Crimea to care for the sick and wounded soldier, to minister in hospitals, and to alleviate suffering and pain, with a selfsacrifice and devotion that has made her name a household word, wherever the English language is spoken. In the armies of France the Sisters of Charity had rendered similar services, and even ministered to the wounded on the battle field; but their labors were a work of religious charity and not an organized sanitary movement.
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Source: The Western Sanitary Commission: A Sketch. St. Louis: R. P. Studley and Co., 1864.
