"The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not
the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness; the stench is
appalling; the fetid air can barely struggle out to taint the
atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and for
all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being made
to save them. Here they lie, just as they were let gently down on
the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on
their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are
not allowed to remain with them. The sick appear to be tended by the
sick, and the dying by the dying."

Miss Nightingale, who was then recovering from her Harley Street
nursing, deeply felt the intensity of the crisis that was moving the
whole nation; but, whereas the panic had driven most of the kind
people who were so eager to help the army, nearly "off their heads,"
it only made hers the cooler and clearer. She wrote, offering her
services to Mr. Sidney Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert, the minister
for war, who, together with his wife, had long known her, and had
recognized her wonderful organizing faculties, and her great
practical experience.

It was on October 15th that she wrote to Mr. Herbert. On the very
same day the minister had written to her. Their letters crossed. Mr.
Herbert, who had himself given much attention to military hospitals,
laid before Miss Nightingale, in his now historical letter, a plan
for nursing the sick and wounded at Scutari.

"There is, as far as I know," he wrote, "only one person in England
capable of organizing and directing such a plan, and I have been
several times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed to
make the attempt. That it will be difficult to form a corps of
nurses, no one knows better than yourself."

After specifying the difficulty in finding not only good nurses, but
good nurses who would be willing to submit to authority, he goes on:
"I have this simple question to put to you. Could you go out
yourself and take charge of everything? It is, of course, understood
that you will have absolute authority over all the nurses, unlimited
power to draw on the Government for all you judge necessary to the
success of your mission; and I think I may assure you of the
co-operation of the medical staff. Your personal qualities, your
knowledge, and your authority in administrative affairs, all fit you
for this position."

Miss Nightinga