Elizabeth Herbert's copy

NIGHTINGALE, Florence.

Observations on the Evidence contained in the Stational Reports submitted to the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India.

London: Edward Stanford, 1863.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003743

8vo (216 x 139 mm). iv, 92 pp., including engraved text illustrations and a double-page view of soldiers in hospital on pp. 40-41. Original publisher's pebbled red cloth with printed paper label to upper board (spine rebacked, covers slightly soiled and spotted). Text clean throughout with just a little age-toning. Provenance: Elizabeth Herbert* (signed on first flyleaf). ----

RARE FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM AND AN INTERESTING ASSOCIATION COPY. The Publisher says in a prefatory note: "On a subject of the highest interest to the country, it appears desirable that Miss Nightingale's views should be placed in the hands of the public, both in England and in India. Those who have Miss Nightingale's other volumes will thus be able to add to them a book which is second to none of them in charm of style, and will promote the reform of the sanitary condition of the British Army, as well as conduce to the well-being of the natives of India." Nightingale's observations focussed on bad water, bad drainage, the filth encountered in local bazaars, and a general lack of ventilation and overcrowding in barrack huts and sick wards. She noted that soldiers frequently had to contend with lamentable living conditions exacerbated by indolence, widespread intemperance, and a casual approach to personal hygiene. In 1873, as a consequence of sanitary improvements, Nightingale was able to report that mortality among soldiers in India had fallen from 69 to 18 per 1,000.
"The book enjoyed a large sale and was widely reviewed. Sir Bartle Frere, asked in later years what was the cause of Miss Nightingale's influence in India and what had set the sanitary crusade in motion, replied that it was not the big Blue-book, which nobody reads, 'but a certain little red book of hers on India which made some of us very savage at the time, but did us all immense good'" (Bishop & Goldie).
*Elizabeth Herbert (1822-1911) was the wife of Sidney Herbert (1810-1861), a British statesman and close ally and confidant of Florence Nightingale. In 1846 Sidney Herbert married Elizabeth, only daughter of Lt.-Gen. Charles Ashe à Court-Repington and niece of William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury. Florence Nightingale first met the married couple whilst travelling in Italy in 1848. They became close friends and the group even managed to obtain an audience with Pope Pius IX. The Herbert's would become important figures in Florence Nightingale's life. Elizabeth was one of the Governors of the "Establishment for Gentlewomen During Illness" where Florence Nightingale gained her first professional nursing position. Sir Sidney Herbert, in his function of the Secretary of State for War, asked Florence Nightingale to lead a team of nurses out to Scutari during the Crimean War, and together he and Nightingale led the movement after the war for Army health and reform of the War Office. Elizabeth was a philanthropist, author and translator, and intimate friend and correspondent of many other eminent Victorians, including politicians, such as Benjamin Disraeli, Palmerston and Gladstone; and leaders in the Roman Catholic revival, such as Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Vaughan and Cardinal Manning. She figures as Lady Chiselhurst in W.H. Mallock's novel, The Old Order Changes (1886), and as Lady St Jerome in Disraeli's roman à clef, Lothair (1870).
Reference: Bishop & Goldie, A Bio-Bibliography of Florence Nightingale 55(ii). - Visit our website to see more images!

Sold