Next comes the consideration of store-place, which can be going forward while busy hands are cleaning every inch of ceiling, walls, floors, and windows within. There must be sheds and stables for the transport service; and a surgery and dispensary planned with a view to the utmost saving of time and trouble, so that medicines and utensils may be within reach and view, and the freest access allowed to applicants. 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.