cants. The
kitchens must have the best stoves and boilers, dressers and scales, and
apparatus of every kind that is known to the time; for more lives depend
on perfect food being administered with absolute punctuality than
upon any medical treatment. There must be large and abundant and airy
store-places for the provisions, and also for such stocks of linen and
bedding as perhaps nobody ever dreamed of before the Crimean War.

The fatal notions of Regimental Hospital management caused infinite
misery at Scutari. In entering the Regimental Hospital, the soldier
carries his kit, or can step into his quarters for it: and the
regulations, therefore, suppose him to be supplied with shirts and
stockings, towel and soap, brushes and comb. This supposition was
obstinately persevered in, at Scutari, till private charity had shamed
the authorities into providing for the men's wants. When the wounded
were brought from the Alma, embarked on crowded transports straight from
the battle-field, how could they bring their kits? Miss Nightingale,
and benevolent visitors from England, bought up at Constantinople,
and obtained from home, vast supplies of body- and bed-linen, towels,
basins, and water-cans; and till they did so, the poor patients lay on
a single blanket or coarse canvas sheet, in their one shirt, perhaps
soaked in blood and dirt. There were some stores in the hospital, though
not enough; and endless difficulty was made about granting them, lest
any man should have brought his kit, and thus have a double supply.
Amidst the emergencies of active war, it seems to be an obvious
provision that every General Hospital should have in store, with ample
bedding, body-linen enough for as many patients as can occupy the
beds,--the consideration being kept in view, that, where the sick and
wounded are congregated, more frequent changes of linen are necessary
than under any other circumstances.

The excellent and devoted managers of the hospitals of the Union army
need no teaching as to the daily administration of the affairs of
the wards. They will never have to do and dare the things that Miss
Nightingale had to decide upon, because they have happily had the
privilege of arranging their hospitals on their own principles. They
will not know the exasperation of seeing sufferers crowded together on a
wooden divan (with an under-stratum of dead rats and rotting rags) while
there is an out-house full of bedsteads laid up in store under loc