Check out our Most Anticipated Books for 2025

The Crimean War and Disease: Background information when reading Flight of the Wild Swan

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard

Flight of the Wild Swan

by Melissa Pritchard
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Paperback:
  • Mar 2024, 416 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

The Crimean War and Disease

This article relates to Flight of the Wild Swan

Print Review

Florence Nightingale at Scutary [sic] HospitalThe Crimean War of 1853–1856 pitted the Russian Empire against an alliance of British, French, Turkish and Sardinian troops on the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea. Britain entered the war in March 1854 to protect its trading interests with Turkey, while France saw an opportunity for revenge against the Russians after Napoleon's defeat in 1812. In military terms, according to naval historian Andrew Lambert, "it was a midway point between Waterloo and World War One."

The war foreshadowed the horrors of the American Civil War, employing Napoleonic tactics with improved weaponry. The human death toll was appalling—roughly 25,000 British, 100,000 French and up to a million Russians died. But the vast majorities of these deaths were not from battle wounds. The biggest killer in the Crimean War was disease.

As novelist Melissa Pritchard so hauntingly captures in Flight of the Wild Swan, the Crimean War would become Florence Nightingale's war: a fight against disease and unsanitary conditions but also the struggle to equip, train and support the nursing field from a governmental level. Arriving at the Scutari military hospital in November 1854 (in what is now Istanbul, Turkey), Nightingale and thirty-eight nurses discovered wounded and dying soldiers in ghastly sanitary conditions. According to an article in the American Journal of Public Health, "ten times more soldiers were dying of diseases such as typhus, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery than from battle wounds."

The suffering Nightingale encountered in the Crimea was a catalog of horrors, many of which were entirely preventable. Not only were soldiers poorly cared for, but supplies of essential medicines and other necessities were lacking, infections spiraled and filth added exponentially to everyone's miseries: "Nightingale found there was no clean linen; the clothes of the soldiers were swarming with bugs, lice, and fleas; the floors, walls, and ceilings were filthy; and rats were hiding under the beds. There were no towels, basins, or soap, and only fourteen baths for approximately 2000 soldiers."

Recognizing the key issues as "diet, dirt, and drains," Nightingale and her nurses set about procuring better food and thoroughly cleaning the abysmal hospital wards. This experience would focus Nightingale's efforts, during the war and beyond, to champion sanitation as a key factor in a patient's ability to fight off disease and stave off infection. Indeed, the Crimean War was "formative" for Nightingale, as her primary biographer, Lynn McDonald notes.

Through her tireless letter-writing campaigns to British government and medical officials, Nightingale was the ultimate source of "the creation of a new profession of nursing in Britain and major reforms in healthcare and nutrition for ordinary soldiers in the British Army." Many historians cite the Crimean War hospital wards under Nightingale's supervision as the place where nursing "emerged from its infancy" and took on the shape and form of the true profession as we know it today.

'Miss Nightingale in the Hospital in Scutary [sic]', 1856, colored lithograph by and after Max and Simeon A Beeger, courtesy of National Army Museum

Filed under People, Eras & Events

Article by Peggy Kurkowski

This article relates to Flight of the Wild Swan. It first ran in the April 17, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Absolution
    Absolution
    by Jeff VanderMeer
    Ten years ago, the literary landscape was changed forever when Jeff VanderMeer became the "King of ...
  • Book Jacket: The Message
    The Message
    by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    It does not surprise me that Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message is one of the most important books I've ...
  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

X M T S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.