FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, the General Hospital, the dire emergencies of the hospitals, and the continued deficiencies of the pur- veying department, induced the authorities to "relax their petty restrictions sufficiently to enable Miss Nightingale, in February, to extend her sphere of usefulness. Eight nurses were dispatched to Bala- klava ; while a number were placed, under the supervision of Miss Emily Anderson, in the General Hospital. Meantime, disease continued its ravages. Cholera, and malignant fever, bore more and more heavily upon the wan and wasted victims crowding the hospitals. Among other sufferings endured by the men, frost-bite in its most aggravated form assailed them. The medical officers spoke of the appearance which the patients afflicted in this way presented as being most terrible ; " and even their professional stoicism seemed to be overcome by it." By February, the great increase of fever was the chief point of remark ; it raged destructively, and in less than a month it swept away no fewer than seven surgeons, leaving eight more, and three of the nurses, danger- ously ill. Indeed, at that time there was but one medical attendant well enough to wait on the sick in the Barrack Hospital ; and his services were required in no less than twenty-one wards. Drs. Newton and Struthers were tended in their last moments, and had their dying eyes closed, by Miss Nightingale. For "wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form," wrote Mr. Macdonald, in February, "and the 30
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