With Respect...

I must just mention that Florence Nightingale never went anywhere near the 
Crimea.  She was in Turkey, dealing only with the wounded who survived the 
journey out to the suburbs in Constantinople, where she was based.  She 
never dealt either with the desperately wounded, or the War itself.  She was 
based in military hospitals, on sufference, so it is no surprise she did 
nothing without direct consent of the military doctors.  This is not to 
decry her remarkable acheivements, but to place them firmly in context.

The nurse who was actually in the Crimea, nursing the wounded on the 
battlefront without military authority or support, was Mary Seacole.  Who is 
forgotten in history as she was both of mixed race, and working outwith that 
sufferance.  She literally built her hospital from the scrap wood and metal 
on the streets and saved lives against the wishes of both miltary doctors, 
and the establishment that deemed her unsuitable.

Given the mythologising of Florence, and the forgetting of Mary, I'd suggest 
- respectfully - that holding up Florence as a beacon of good practise in 
terms of working with doctors is less useful than one might initially think. 
  Unlike Florence, Mary paid her own vast fare to the Crimea, and when 
rejected by the Nightingale team in Turkey because of her colour, went on 
into the heart of the battlefield itself, in order to treat the wounded 
regardless of which side they were fighting.

Mary's stance that all injured soldiers required aid, regardless of the 
politics of the situation, may be a more fruitful position from which to 
view the thorny ethical problem on gainsaying incorrect and possible 
damaging information given to mothers.   In the mud and blood of the Crimea, 
Mary sought to give aid on direct need, and did not analyse it in terms of 
qualifications or seniority.  Or political stance.  She went to where there 
was need, regardless of being told it was not appropriate to her 
qualifications, gender or colour.

Lactnetters might find more to resonate with in Mary, than Florence.

Again, with respect....

Morgan Gallagher

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