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‘‘Answers to Written Questions’’ ‘‘A nswers to Written Questions,’’ while Nightingale’s public statement on the Crimean War, is a partial and sanitized document. It is a mere thirty-five pages (albeit on extra-long paper) in the original report, somewhat extended in the revised version of 1859 reproduced here, as compared with 853 pages in the ‘‘confidential report,’’ Notes on the Health of the British Army. Only fifteen tables were included in ‘‘Answers’’ and a further ten in the appendixed Notes, compared with hundreds in Notes on the Health of the British Army. Hundreds of letters by numerous people are in the longer document, but only four (three of Dr Hall’s to Lord Raglan) were excerpted in ‘‘Answers,’’ Significantly, these letters show Hall’s misleading statistical reports, which greatly underestimated the amount of mortality. ‘‘Answers’’ is Nightingale’s evidence to the royal commission, given in written form in lieu of appearing before it and being cross-examined, as other witnesses were. This meant that the director general, Andrew Smith, who was both a member of the royal commission and had been a witness before it, could not contest her evidence—his own was subjected to several days of questioning. Answering the prepared written questions, however, gave Nightingale the great advantage of ensuring that she could make the points she wanted, and not be limited to a narrow range of subjects. Sidney Herbert had apparently wanted her to be confined to the subject of hospital construction. She objected, and not only because she was not an expert on the subject. She clearly wanted to be free to say what she wanted on the entire range of problems , although she obviously used self-censorship. Her evidence ends the royal commission report. One can only suppose that Nightingale drafted the questions herself , for she clearly got an easy entrance to the material she wanted to put on the record. For example, she asked herself (Qu. 12), ‘‘To ascertain the efficiency of the sanitary or medical organization of the / 889 army, it should be tested by its results in peace and in war?’’ and answered it ‘‘Certainly, in both.’’ Adding peacetime permitted her to bring in substantial comparative data from civilian hospitals. (Sidney Herbert’s official report, too, included much on civilian institutions.) She must have been satisfied with the document, for she had it incorporated in its entirety at the end of her 1859 book-length edition of Notes on Hospitals. Of the eighty-nine questions Nightingale set herself to answer, the first two let her establish her credentials. The next cover the bare details of work done during the war: hospitals, numbers of nurses, diseases , deaths, sanitary defects, inadequacy of clothing, food, hospital management, transport of the soldiers from the Crimea to Scutari and lack of equipment. Only a small portion of the questions are on the war itself, while most are directed to issues of future organization. Most significantly, there is no laying of blame on individuals in ‘‘Answers,’’ while accountability was a major purpose in Notes on the Health of the British Army. Nightingale wanted the causes of the disaster to be clearly set out in this shorter document, but only as the conditions at fault, drainage, ventilation, nutrition, etc., and administrative, or system failures : not who was responsible, which was so much the theme of the longer report. Individuals, in fact, are hardly mentioned by name. Even the blameworthy Sir John Hall is referred to initially only by his title, ‘‘principal medical officer.’’ Mother Bridgeman, who gave Nightingale such a bad time, is not referred to by name, although an incident of a soldier in her hospital dying from not being moved for a week was. A footnote citing the ‘‘great difference’’ in standards of order and cleanliness between the women of Britain and Ireland is likely an oblique reference to the poor order and dirt Nightingale reported when the Irish nuns left the Balaclava Hospital (Qu. 41). Also in sharp contrast to Notes on the Health of the British Army, there is little in her ‘‘Answers’’ on the defects in war planning or failures in the months preceding the invasion of the Crimea. The deaths from scurvy, exposure and infectious disease at Varna and Balaclava, before hostilities began, are simply not covered. Less attention, accordingly, is paid to scurvy and diet than in the longer report. Much of what does appear on diet is relegated to an appendix (Note C). The difficulties of providing food, clothing...

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