Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency , and Hospital administration of the British Army
NIGHTINGALE, Florence
London: Printed by Harrison and Sons. 1858.
Description:
Two volumes. First editions. 8vo. 220x140mm. Vol I. pp. [2], iv, [8], v-xix [ibl], 12, 2, I-XXX, [2bl], 3-66; I-XLVII, [1bl]; I-IV; 67-80; I-XXXIV, [2]; 81-176 [2], 177-234; I-XLIV; 235-332; I-XXVII [1bl], 333-556; I-LVIII; 567 [3bl]. Six plates, five folding. Vol II. pp. iv, [4], v-x; 28; 133 [3]; 23 [3]. One folding plan. Original mauve printed boards. Numerous pages unopened. Volume two is inscribed "Confidential" on upper cover. Boards soiled and worn but recent ly and expertly repaired. Internally very good with a little toning and foxing in places. Housed in a blue drop-back box, red morocco label lettered in gilt. Only one other copy of these two works together, both in the original boards appears in the auction records (in 2004 when the two volumes brought £16,000). A very good copy of this, perhaps the most influential of Florence Nightingale's works, in the extremely scarce original boards.
"On 16 November 1856 Lord Panmure, the Secretary for War, called on Miss Nightingale. When he left three hours later she not only had his promise of the appointment of a Royal Commission on the Army but she had imposed her own Chairman and her own Secretary. It had been agreed between Miss Nightingale and Lord Panmure that she was to prepare a report of her own experiences of hospital life. This would be placed at the disposal of the Commission but would not be generally published if army medical and sanitary affairs were properly reformed" (PMM 343). This "remarkable document" (ibid) is the first of the two volumes offered here. As the Royal Commission did act on its findings, it was never commercially published but was printed and circulated by Florence Nightingale at her own expense. The Commission's conclusion accorded largely with Nightingale's own but there is no question that the official report found as it did and then acted upon those findings, in large part, due to the knowledge that the force of nature that was Florence Nightingale was hard at work on her own "Notes". It is astonishing to think that Nightingale's vast work was compiled within nine months of her first meeting with Panmure. The significance of her report is colossal: "There is not a grievance, nor a defect of the system (or lack of it), nor a remedy that is overlooked. An introduction deals with army health in earlier campaigns. The first six chapters are concerned with the ghastly medical history of the Crimean War. This is followed by extensive and detailed recommendations on hospital organization. The rest of the book ranges far and wide over matters of army life, from sanitary requirements to the pay of private soldiers".
The second volume, "Subsidiary Notes" is an expanded and developed version of Nightingale's 1857 "Memorandum on Female Nurses in Military Hospitals" and is a general discourse on nursing which was later abridged as her more famous "Notes on Nursing".
These works represent two of the most important and far-reaching studies in British medical history and "revolutionized hospital practice throughout the world" (PMM).
Description:
Two volumes. First editions. 8vo. 220x140mm. Vol I. pp. [2], iv, [8], v-xix [ibl], 12, 2, I-XXX, [2bl], 3-66; I-XLVII, [1bl]; I-IV; 67-80; I-XXXIV, [2]; 81-176 [2], 177-234; I-XLIV; 235-332; I-XXVII [1bl], 333-556; I-LVIII; 567 [3bl]. Six plates, five folding. Vol II. pp. iv, [4], v-x; 28; 133 [3]; 23 [3]. One folding plan. Original mauve printed boards. Numerous pages unopened. Volume two is inscribed "Confidential" on upper cover. Boards soiled and worn but recent ly and expertly repaired. Internally very good with a little toning and foxing in places. Housed in a blue drop-back box, red morocco label lettered in gilt. Only one other copy of these two works together, both in the original boards appears in the auction records (in 2004 when the two volumes brought £16,000). A very good copy of this, perhaps the most influential of Florence Nightingale's works, in the extremely scarce original boards.
"On 16 November 1856 Lord Panmure, the Secretary for War, called on Miss Nightingale. When he left three hours later she not only had his promise of the appointment of a Royal Commission on the Army but she had imposed her own Chairman and her own Secretary. It had been agreed between Miss Nightingale and Lord Panmure that she was to prepare a report of her own experiences of hospital life. This would be placed at the disposal of the Commission but would not be generally published if army medical and sanitary affairs were properly reformed" (PMM 343). This "remarkable document" (ibid) is the first of the two volumes offered here. As the Royal Commission did act on its findings, it was never commercially published but was printed and circulated by Florence Nightingale at her own expense. The Commission's conclusion accorded largely with Nightingale's own but there is no question that the official report found as it did and then acted upon those findings, in large part, due to the knowledge that the force of nature that was Florence Nightingale was hard at work on her own "Notes". It is astonishing to think that Nightingale's vast work was compiled within nine months of her first meeting with Panmure. The significance of her report is colossal: "There is not a grievance, nor a defect of the system (or lack of it), nor a remedy that is overlooked. An introduction deals with army health in earlier campaigns. The first six chapters are concerned with the ghastly medical history of the Crimean War. This is followed by extensive and detailed recommendations on hospital organization. The rest of the book ranges far and wide over matters of army life, from sanitary requirements to the pay of private soldiers".
The second volume, "Subsidiary Notes" is an expanded and developed version of Nightingale's 1857 "Memorandum on Female Nurses in Military Hospitals" and is a general discourse on nursing which was later abridged as her more famous "Notes on Nursing".
These works represent two of the most important and far-reaching studies in British medical history and "revolutionized hospital practice throughout the world" (PMM).