small scale, and in the face of obstacles and difficulties innumerable, is but an earnest of what woman will easily and naturally achieve, as legitimate spheres of action open before her in the world's growing conviction of the need of the female element for its highest organization and administration. "Male and female, created he them," is true of the intellect and soul, no less than of the physical frame. Throw open all arts, sciences, professions, and trades to woman, it will be found that men and women can no more be rivals in the moral, intellectual, and spiritual life, than they can be rivals in the material and physical life. Nature herself has fixed the limit in quality and not in degree, and if man, intellectually and morally, hold the sledge-hammer and mace which can forge and weld the surface, woman grasps the keen and subtle blade which can pierce to the innermost heart of all things.

Great and lamentable as the disasters were in the Crimea from defective organization, and from stupid, if not criminal, adherence to routine, the extraordinary emergencies of the case furnish, to some extent, extraordinary excuses. This inquiry, however, into the sanitary condition of the army shows a state of things at home for which there is not only no shadow of excuse, but which reflects upon the probity, intelligence, and humanity of every officer in the service. Among the admirably prepared tables of mortality put in by Miss Nightingale, there is one of such vast and permanent importance, that we give it at length, with her observations thereon :-“RELATIVE MORTALITY OF THE ARMY AT Home, and of the English MALE POPULATION, AT CORRESPONDING AGES :

That is to say, that, if the army were as healthy as the population from which they are drawn, they would die at one half the rate they die at now.

* i. e. Eight four-tenths; the decimal fractions entering into all extended calcula

tions.

That this high rate of mortality is not indigenous to an army, the following extract from the Report itself shows:

"It has been stated to us, as a fact so singular that it deserves further inquiry, that the only army in which the mortality does not much, if at all, exceed that of the population from which it is drawn, so far as the latter can be ascertained, is the native army in India, whose rates are slightly lower than those of the native civil population of those districts in which the rates of mortality are known."

"The army are picked lives, and the inferior lives are thus thrown back among the mass of the population.

66

'The health of the army is continually kept up by an influx of fresh lives, while those which have been used up in the service are also thrown back into the general population, and give a very high mortality.

"The general population includes, besides those thus rejected by the army itself (whether in recruiting or invaliding), vagrants, paupers, intemperate persons, the dregs of the race, over whose habits we have little or no control.

"The food, clothing, lodging, employment, and nearly all that concerns the sanitary state of the soldier are absolutely under our control, and may be regulated to the minutest particular.

"Yet, with all this, the mortality of the army, from which the injured lives are subtracted, is double that of the whole population, to which the injured lives are added."

The following evidence may perhaps throw some light upon this formidable state of things:

"I am bound to say that the military hospitals I have seen in England, Portsmouth, Chatham, Brompton, are almost as much in want of certain sanitary works as Scutari." This of "military hospitals," be it observed, under the especial superintendence of the medical staff.

It is impossible, within the limits of this article, to do more than touch upon the subjects so fully and ably entered upon by Florence Nightingale. Her objections to the system of regimental hospitals, to their effect upon the army medical officers, their obstacles to the progress and diffusion of medical science, are presented in that clear and forcible manner which shows a complete mastery of the subject. Indeed, no one can read this evidence without being struck with the wide grasp of facts and the logical deductions it evinces.

With regard to female nurses in military hospitals, Miss Nightingale, having shown the utter inefficiency of "orderlies," observes:"It has been proved by experience that the presence of female nurses in large wards renders discipline extremely easy. *** As to what class of nurses should be employed in military hospitals, my own opinion is humbly but entirely against employing any but women of the efficiency, responsibility, and character of head nurses in civil hospitals."

Miss Nightingale's decided opinion upon this head is corroborated by the testimony of another lady volunteer to the East. In the last chapter of Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses' we find the result of personal experience, both in the East, and in our hospitals at home; experience, proving the great need of woman's work there is in this direction, not only as provision for the occasional horrors and sufferings of war, but in alleviation of the suffering that is with

us always in the sick and poor.

"Attention has been drawn towards the class of women whose task it is to nurse the sick of England. These pages will in some degree show how unfitted they are for that responsible office; for though a military hospital was the worst imaginable position in which to place them, yet those who were unable to resist its temptations are certainly unfitted for their present occupation. * * * It is not for military hospitals alone that we want better nurses. *** Many who will read these pages have perhaps never passed within hospital walls; many more, if they have done so, have paid their visit at appointed times when all looked its best. But others as well as myself have learnt our experience of hospital work from more authentic sources. We have lived in hospital wards, going there for the purpose of preparing ourselves-first, to undertake the nursing of the poor at home, and again when about to proceed to the East. We placed ourselves under the hospital nurses, receiving our instruction from them, and, thus being possessed of no authority over them, were admitted behind the scenes of hospital life; and what we saw there—of disobedience to medical orders and cruelty to patients-would fill pages, and make those who read them shudder! Shudder, as we often have done when we saw some little innocent child, who from some terrible accident had been brought into the hospital, exposed to that atmosphere of evil. More evil was heard in one hour in a London hospital than would meet one's ears during months passed in a military one."

A sad picture this, but one whose truth is not to be doubted. Valuable as are the services hitherto rendered by Miss Nightingale, she has yet a crowning one to add in the organization and establishment of a training school for nurses. May we not hope that the time is at hand, when, recruited in health and strength, she will avail herself of the means placed at her disposal by her grateful countrymen and women, and perpetuate her deeds of loving kindness and mercy by founding a new order of true Sisters of Charity, who, for love of God in man and man in God, for the high uses of humanity, will emulate the beneficent works of that order established by St. Vincent de Paul in 1660, of whom Voltaire exclaimed, that, if anything could make him believe in Christianity, it would be such deeds as those wrought by the Sœurs de la Charité.

M. M. H.

X.-ELIZABETH BLACKWELL.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ENGLISH WOMAN'S JOURNAL.
Paris, Feb. 14th, 1858.

MY DEAR MADAM,

I regret that circumstances should have compelled me so long to postpone the preparation of the sketch of the history of my sisters-Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman who ever took a medical degree, and Dr. Emily Blackwell, who has followed in her steps-which I have been so often urged by yourself and other friends to bring, more clearly than has yet been done, before the notice of our countrywomen; but your last moving appeal upon this subject has just reached me, and shall be responded to without farther delay.

But, before entering upon this task, let me state, distinctly, that if I have consented to furnish you with the outline of Dr. Elizabeth's biography, so frequently asked for by those who are desirous of knowing who she is, how she came to adopt the medical profession, how she obtained her degree, and what has been the result of her practice as a physician for women and children-questions naturally prompted by the imperfect accounts which have appeared from time to time in the public prints, but the reply to which necessitates allusion to family and personal details not usually, and under ordinary circumstances, brought before the public in the life-time of the parties concerned-I have done so because I share the conviction, so often expressed to me by others, that a knowledge of the facts narrated in the rapid sketch I am about to give you is essential to a correct appreciation of my sister's course, as showing that the aim which she has proposed to herself, and which she has accomplished under circumstances of more than ordinary difficulty, has been suggested by no love of eccentricity, no craving after notoriety, but has grown naturally out of the experiences of her life, acting upon a character peculiarly adapted to the work to which she has thus been led to devote herself, from an unwavering conviction of duty, and an earnest desire to be useful to her sex and to her kind.

And, in the first place, let me correct the very general misapprehension as to their nationality, to which the fact that my sisters have obtained their medical diplomas in the United States, and are now practising as physicians in that country, appears to have given rise in England.

As you are already aware, the numerous family to which they belong-now scattered over three of the four quarters of the globe are natives of Bristol, in which city their father, the late Mr.

Samuel Blackwell, was extensively engaged for nearly twenty years as a sugar-refiner, and where he was well known for his active and liberal exertions in the various religious and benevolent enterprises of the day, and for his energetic support of all measures of local and general reform.

Their parents preferring the system of home-instruction to that of schools, the education of the children was conducted principally with the aid of governesses and masters. Their winters were spent in town, their summers at the sea-side. Long walks in all weathers formed part of every day's avocations; an amount of romping going on between lesson-hours that would have been sufficiently trying to any mother of less healthy, and less genial temper, than theirs. Birthdays were celebrated with an amount of zeal in direct proportion with the frequency of their recurrence; and Christmas and New Year's Days with an observance worthy of the olden time.

Small, of fair complexion, with clear bluish-gray eyes, light hair remarkably soft and fine, beautiful hands, and a very sweet voice, and, in her childhood, so habitually reserved and silent, that her father, with whom she was an especial favourite, had given her the name of "Little Shy," nothing in her appearance or manner indicated the directness and tenacity of purpose, and the unusual physical strength, which distinguished the subject of this notice from her earliest years, and of which many characteristic examples might be cited. For instance: when she was between four and five years old, her father having occasion to visit Dublin, the whole family went down to the Hotwells to see him off; Elizabeth, under the impression that she was rendering him an important service, insisted on holding his valise on her lap all the way, and only giving it up on reaching the basin where the steamer was lying. As the vessel moved slowly down the river, the children ran on for some time along the bank, waving their handkerchiefs; but when, quickening her speed, she began to leave the party behind, it was proposed to turn back and go home. Elizabeth, who had set her heart on going to Ireland with her father, and had been much disappointed on finding that she could not be allowed to do so, took no heed of this proposition, but walked steadily on, quickening her pace as the steamer quickened hers. No persuasion could induce her to turn back. She said nothing in reply to the chorus of remonstrances addressed to her; and had evidently made up her mind, as she could not go with her father in the steamer, to accompany him to Ireland on foot. At last it was suggested to her that her father had only gone in the steamer because, Ireland being an island, with water all round it, people could not go thither in any other way; and that, even if she should walk on to the very end of the land, she could not walk across the water, but would be obliged to come back for want of a boat. As this view of the case became clear to her, she suddenly stopped, turned round with a countenance