"I CAN NEVER FORGET YOUR KIND CARE OF ME WHEN I WAS ILL" NIGHTINGALE (Florence, 1820-1910, Nurse and Hospital Reformer)

Fine early Autograph Letter Signed 'Florence Nightingale' in Scutari, to Miss Erskine thanking her "for the information so kindly procured for me by you relative to the case of W. H. Clements. In answer to your letter ... & enquiry relative to the Officer's Nurses - since poor Mr Willoughby Moore's death, I have by order of the General Commander, undertaken the sick officers and their nursing at the General hospital here and some few very serious cases at the Barrack Hospital. Of Mrs W. Moore's staff of four nurses, I have taken two, 'Caitor' & 'Dawson', who are nursing my sick Officers here. A third died Oct 8th. A fourth Mrs Moore's own ... was sent home and I have no intention of having her out again. Could you give me any information about an Officer, named Townsend, embarked from hence (from Hospital) ... for Crimea, landed at Naval Hospital, Therapia, with Cholera, died same day. His friends wd be most grateful for any information. They have heard nothing but the bare fact of his death from his Commanding Officer. They do not even tell me his Regt, which I forget. I am most grateful to you for your information - I beg to know whether you have any wants which I can supply, gelatine etc ...", with a postscript that she "can never forget your kind care of me when I was ill ...", 3 sides 4to., with original autograph envelope, Barrack Hospital, Scutari, 18th January dated 1846 but has to be a neat cut has been professionally repaired, barely affecting the signature

Although she has dated the letter 1846 it must be 1856 as Nightingale arrived early in November 1854 at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari. Her team found that poor care for wounded soldiers was being delivered by overworked medical staff in the face of official indifference. Medicines were in short supply, hygiene was being neglected, and mass infections were common, many of them fatal. There was no equipment to process food for the patients. Her Crimean Fever and chronic illness, possibly burcellosis, afflicted her in 1855 and she never fully recovered.
Mary Erskine was a volunteer nurse at the Naval Hospital at Therapia during the Crimean war. She nursed Florence Nightingale when she was ill and they kept in touch. Mary Erskine became superintendent of the hospital at Therapia.
Provenance: The descendants of Mary Erskine.

Item Date:  1856

Stock No:  39709