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CHAPTER 5 Florence Nightingale’s Legacy of Caring and Its Applications 43

Nightingale sustained there, experiences that ce-
mented her views on disease and contagion, as well
as her commitment to an environmental approach
to health and illness:

The filth became indescribable. The men in the corri-

dors lay on unwashed floors crawling with vermin. As

the Rev. Sidney Osborne knelt to take down dying

messages, his paper became thickly covered with lice.

There were no pillows, no blankets; the men lay, with

their heads on their boots, wrapped in the blanket or

greatcoat stiff with blood and filth which had been

their sole covering for more than a week.. .[S]he

[Miss Nightingale] estimated... there were more

than 1000 men suffering from acute diarrhea and

only 20 chamber pots....[T]here was liquid filth

which floated over the floor an inch deep. Huge

wooden tubs stood in the halls and corridors for the

FIGURE 5–2 The Crimea and the Black Sea, 1854–1856.Designed by Manuel Lopez Parras in Elspeth Huxley, Florence Nightingale (1975),
p. 998, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.