The moment of the commencement of war, the committee would call on those persons who desire to dedicate themselves, for the time being, to this work, which will consist in helping and nursing, under the guidance of experienced physicians, the wounded, first on the battle-field, then in the field and regular hospitals.
Spontaneous devotion is not as rare as one might think. Many persons, sure of being able to do some good, helped and facilitated by a Superior Committee, would certainly go, and others, at their own expense, would undertake a task so essentially beneficent. During our selfish century what an attraction for the generous-hearted and for chivalrous characters to brave the same danger as the soldier with an entirely voluntary mission of peace and consolation.
History proves that it is in no way chimerical to hope for such self-devotion. Two recent facts especially have just confirmed this. They occurred during the war in the East and closely relate to our subject.
While Sisters of Charity were nursing the wounded and sick of the French army in the Crimea, into the Russian and English armies, there came, from the north and west, two groups of self-devoted women nurses.
The Grand Duchess Helen Pavlovna, of Russia, born, Princess Charlotte, of Wurttemberg, widow of the Grand Duke Michael, having enlisted nearly three hundred ladies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, to serve as nurses in the Russian hospitals of the Crimea; she provided them with everything necessary, and these saintly women were blessed by thousands of soldiers.
In England, Miss Florence Nightingale, having received a pressing appeal from Lord Sidney Herbert, Secretary of War of the British Empire, inviting her to go to the aid of the English soldiers in the Orient, this lady did not hesitate to expose herself personally by great self-devotion. In November, 1854, she went to Constantinople and Scutari with thirty-seven English ladies, who, immediately on arrival gave their attention to nursing the great number of men, wounded in the battle of Inkerman. In 1855 Miss Stanley, having come to take part in her labor with fifty new companions, made it possible for Miss Nightingale to go to Balaklava to inspect the hospitals there. The picture of Miss Florence Nightingale, during the night, going through the vast wards of the military hospitals with a small lamp in her hand, noting the condition of each sick man, will never be obliterated from the hearts of the men, who were the objects or the witnesses of her admirable beneficence, and the memory of it will be engraven in history.
