.. when she had
done it.
Wherever she went, in London or in the country, in the hills of
Derbyshire, or among the rhododendrons at Embley, she was haunted
by a ghost. It was the spectre of Scutari-- the hideous vision of
the organisation of a military hospital. She would lay that
phantom, or she would perish. The whole system of the Army
Medical Department, the education of the Medical Officer, the
regulations of hospital procedure ... REST? How could she rest
while these things were as they were, while, if the like
necessity were to arise again, the like results would follow?
And, even in peace and at home, what was the sanitary condition
of the Army? The mortality in the barracks was, she found, nearly
double the mortality in civil life. 'You might as well take 1,100
men every year out upon Salisbury Plain and shoot them,' she
said. After inspecting the hospitals at Chatham, she smiled
grimly. 'Yes, this is one more symptom of the system which, in
the Crimea, put to death 16,000 men.' Scutari had given her
knowledge; and it had given her power too: her enormous
reputation was at her back-- an incalculable force. Other work,
other duties, might lie before her; but the most urgent, the most
obvious of all, was to look to the health of the Army.
One of her very first steps was to take advantage of the
invitation which Queen Victoria had sent her to the Crimea,
together with the commemorative brooch.
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