replacing the orderlies withdrawn from their regiments, ensuring obedience to the doctors' orders, administering food and medicine, and making the patients comfortable But it was not long before they began to take part in the management. At first Miss Nightingale's share in this was confined to keeping Sidney Herbert informed of what was noteworthy, and enabling him to act accordingly. But the departmental authorities soon got to understand that her views and suggestions were to be specially considered. A regular correspondence on the subject was also established between her and Lord Raglan. Receiving such support, as. well as that derived from the strong interest which the public evinced for her mission, she gradually acquired a powerful controlling influence ; and to this the extraordinary improvement in the condition of the hospital which ensued was then, and has continued to be, chiefly ascribed. The excellent medical staff cheerfully accepted her sway, and the skill and energy which they had always given without stint, no longer expended in struggling amidst chaos, were directed to the best ends. She received, too, from an unexpected source, a large accession of power The conductors of the Times had consented to receive and administer, for the benefit of our sick and wounded, a fund formed by the contributions of their readers. Mr Macdonald; who had come out in charge of it, learning from Miss Nightingale what needs of the sick were most urgent, supplied them, and thus added immeasurably to the benefits attending her presence. Not the least among these was an extensive kitchen which she
1 8 2 The Ratio of Deaths.
established close to her quarters, where all that part of the patients' diet that called for special care in preparation was excellently cooked on an enormous scale.
But all these ameliorations took time, In the period of worst distress in the camp, that is to say, in December and part of January, the influence of the ladies had hardly begun to take effect in any way, and not at all in diminishing the sick-list or the death-rate. Even when their care and skill had made patients feel themselves in good hands, and had banished a vast proportion of the misery, the ratio of deaths for some time continued to increase. It kept steadily and largely augmenting all through December, November, January, and February. In these four months nearly 9000 soldiers died in our hospitals, and at the end of February 13,600 men were lying sick there. The causes lay too deep to be touched even by improved method and administration. But early in March a sanitary commission had arrived to examine into the condition of the hospitals, with power to act on the conclusions they might come to. Works of ventilation, of drainage, and of water supply, had in the second week of March already made s'ome progress ; the death-rate went down with extraordinary rapidity week by week, till in June it had come to the level of our military hospitals at home.
In the result the evils suffered met some compensation in the form of permanent benefit. At the close of the campaign Mr Herbert presided over a sanitary com-
Resignation of the Ministry. 183
mission at home, and to its recommendations are due many of the improvements which so greatly distinguish our present military hospital system from that which existed at the time of the war.