Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Florence Nightingale at Scutari

When Florence Nightingale arrived at Scutari during the Crimean War, the army hospital was filthy and rat-infested, and among the 2,000 wounded lying there the mortality was fifty percent. After she reorganized the wards and insisted on absolute cleanliness, mortality declined to a little over one percent.

The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari, by Jerry Barrett. 1857. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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