Mary Seacole: Angel of the Crimea (3 of 4)

destined for the frontline in Russia Mary Seacole couldn't resist the temptation to visit the British Army Hospital in Turkey that had rejected her nurses past in and out with noiseless tread and subdued manner I thought many of them had that strange expression of the eyes which those who have gazed long and scenes of war or horror seldom lose Scutari Hospital was a place of regimentation and strict discipline with limited resources Florence Nightingale ran the hospital with an iron hand I don't think they would ever had fitted into florence Nightingale's system I can't imagine Mary with all her feistiness and her opinionated manner and also fundamentally totally different methodology which was hands on by the bedside holding a dying man not standing at a distance as Seco bumped into old friends from Jamaica she instinctively broke one of nightingales most cherished rules nurses should not fraternize with patients this is some slight risk of given offense I could not resist the temptation of lending a helping hand here and there easing a stiff bandage that was given pain or replacing one that had slipped oh no this will never do nightingales staff assumed Mary Seacole was looking for a job the stage was set two of the most powerful personalities in British medicine were about to come face to face a slight figure in the nurses dress with a peel gentle and above all firm face resting lightly in the palm of one white hand while the other supports the elbow a position which gives to her countenance a keen inquiring expression which is rather marked what do you want missus Eco anything we can do for you if it lies within my power I shall be very happy I just need a rule for tonight as it's too dark to return to my ship sadly it'll be arranged Florence Nightingale denied that English woman whose name shall never die but sound on the lips of British men until the hour of doom one thought never left my mind as I walk through those fearful miles of suffering in that great Hospital if it is so here what must it be like at the scene of war I felt happy in the conviction that I must be useful three of four days nearer to the soldiers pressing once than this florence Nightingale's hospital was in Turkey four days sail from the frontline in Russia many wounded men refused to risk the journey Mary Seacole wanted to get as close to the war zone as she could she stopped at a small patch of land just a few miles from the front and we created the Jamaica of her youth in just a few weeks she had recycled timbers and sheets of metal dredged from the harbor to Conger out of nowhere a restaurant General Store and clinic rolled into one in typical seco fashion she called it the British hotel you might get everything at mother sea calls from an anchor to a lever for the outer man linen and hosiery boots and shoes and for the inner man salmon lobsters and oysters and tins wild fowl curry powder snuff and currant jelly or you would have stumbled upon an Irish I so wish that we had an illustration at the outside of the British show tunnel in the Crimea it's wonderful from the inside but outside it must have looked at straw Denari it was built from bits and bobs from flotsam and jetsam it was a very organic place with merry pulsing at the middle of it I think in her own very small way I put that British hotel stranded in the middle of nowhere Mary provided a little oasis of conviviality of home of laughter of normal human intercourse of behavior where people could be happy and forget war whatever confusion and disorder existed elsewhere Comfort and Ottawa always to be found at the British hotel there are some lovely accounts where soldiers turn up at late at night in this uproarious parties going on with much drinking and others talk about arriving and having long talks into the night about the old days in the West Indies but the British Hotel was much more than an officer's club it was a business whose profits would finance a higher purpose quite a few the soldier I witnesses in the Crimea said she didn't not blush to charge one and six for a bottle of water or the highest price for her best champagne but the fact is she also made clear that it was because the well paid novice in the work cause that helped transport things to the front because they could afford her high prices and because obviously the officers could that subsidized her that enabled her to keep going making her herbal remedies and giving them out free to those without money who needed help within weeks of opening the British Hotel had become the soldier's hospital of choice marry cycles treatments for cholera and dysentery actually worked her success attracted the attention of the crimean war correspondent William Howard Russell of the times her Hut was surrounded every morning by the rough navies and land transport men who had a faith in her proficiency in the healing art which she justified by many cures new research has revealed that Mary Seacole was described to verad Lee in more than 20 eye witness accounts of the war I was severely attacked by diarrhea after landing in the Crimea and nothing served me until I called on mrs. Eko she gave me her medicine but once and I was cured she was principal medical officer to the army work score and at the time of the cholera last summer used to prescribe pomegranate juice which was an almost never failing specific the use of pomegranate was typically effective it is a highly astringent and it's been used quite extensively internally mostly in the treatment of diarrhea this actually has a beneficial effect so she's simply and very under matically took the experience she brought with her and applied it under local circumstances she does integrate things which were highly uncommon and completely unheard of by the medical establishment in Britain for a soldier sitting there under this enormous ly difficult circumstances somebody like Mary must have come like an angel because she finally did something from his perspective it couldn't have been more different at Scutari with its miles of bed lined corridors where one-to-one treatment was virtually impossible Florence Nightingale was a superb but impersonal administrator patients were treated with fairness but detachment she would not at us and we could only kiss her shadow in one other respect the two women were very different Florence Nightingale visited the Crimea only during the war Mary Seacole was at the front line almost every day mrs. C ko is often seen riding up to the front with baskets of medicines of her own preparation never-failing presents among wounded after the battle and assisting the meal made her beloved by the rank-and-file of the whole army at the Battle of Shania she was found administering creature comforts to the wounded utterly unmindful of the short and she'll flying about her in all directions in the teeth of battle Mary Seacole proved herself as a hands-on surgeon as William Howard Russell of the times told his readers I have witnessed her devotion and courage I see her go down under fire with her store of creature comforts for our wounded men and a more tender or skillful hand about a wound or a broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons there's one thing that all the eyewitnesses concur on is that Mary was effectively legendary throughout the Crimea there was this enormous affection for her amusement too because of her rather loud and domineering manner and her eccentric style of dress wearing sort of plumed hats in the midst of war Mary Seacole the child of the British Army in Jamaica had effectively become its mother in the Crimea the deaths in the trenches touched me very deeply it was very usual when a young officer was ordered into the trenches for him to ride down to the hotel to dine they seldom filled on those occasions to shake my hand at party I used to think it was like having a large family of children in with fever and dreading to hear which one had passed away in the night my dear madam will you do me the favor to accept the enclosed trifle in remembrance of that dear son whose last moments were soothed by your kindness death is always terrible no one need be ashamed to fear it I have seen some brave men die trembling like children whereas others who have spent their lives in avoidance of the least danger or trouble I've drawn their last painful breath like heroes striking their force to the last wrapping them a victory and making their defeat a triumph if I were to speak of all the nameless horrors of that spring as plainly as I could I should disgust you but a day in the Crimea was a long time to give to grief by the time British soldiers were finally sent home after defeating the Russians in 1856 Mary Seacole had served 18 months in the Crimea when the war ended and her boys were all sent off here they're many on to the Indian Mutiny she was completely rudderless she'd lost her huge family all this going home seemed strange and somewhat sad and sometimes I felt that I could not sympathise with the glad faces and happy hearts of those who were looking forward to the delights of home for I clearly had no home to go to the Jamaican doctress who had risked so much in her role as a mother of the British Army faced the prospect of returning to London and nobody she had invested all her capital in new supplies it seemed everything she owned would now fall into Russian hands I was glad to hear of peace although it must have been apparent to everyone that it would cause my Mary Seacole returned to London with nothing

Channel: thehistorydoctor

Views: 23,700

Rating: 4.7938147 out of 5

Keywords: Mary Seacole, Florence Nightingale, black history, British history, Caribbean, West Indies, Afro-Caribbean, mixed race, history, documentary, Angela Bruce, Sonali Fernando, Culture, inspiring women, nursing, nurses

Id: eHsYma3RDdI

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 03 2012