Beschreibung:

NIGHTINGALE, Florence (1820-1910). Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army . London: Harrison and Sons, 1858. Extremely rare first edition, authorial presentation copy, of the foundation for all the administrative, sanitary and nursing reforms in the British Army. When Nightingale met Lord Panmure in November 1856, she persuaded him to appoint a Royal Commission on the British Army after her experiences in the Crimean War. Panmure officially requested that Nightingale give evidence based on her own experience and observations, and by August 1857 she had the main body of the work ready for the press. However, it was not published at once, as it was not considered appropriate for the Nightingale Report to appear before the Report of the Royal Commission itself; when the latter appeared the following January, it contained an appendix with a mass of official correspondence on the care of the sick and wounded during the Crimean War which Nightingale immediately incorporated in her own Notes 'while the proof sheets ... were passing through the press.' The last-minute incorporation of this material explains the erratic pagination of the work, the additions being on pages with Roman numerals. The Notes were printed at her own expense for private circulation among influential people, and they show her as a major innovator in the collection, tabulation, and interpretation of descriptive statistics; someone who recognised the value of the idea that social phenomena could be objectively measured and subjected to mathematical analysis. Notes itself was never published; we can only trace copies selling at auction since 1976 (ABPC/RBH). Bishop and Goldie 50; PMM 343. Octavo (222 x 143mm). Half-title, 6 lithographic plates, all but one folding, one of which coloured ('Plan of Skutari' with 2 tears, one repaired with tape, coloured 'Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East' soiled and frayed at fore-edge, first flyleaf chipped and soiled affecting following half-title, some light marginal creasing and dogearing). Modern half black morocco. Provenance : authorial presentation copy (note on flyleaf, and autograph letter signed by Florence Nightingale, 30 Old Burlington St, 6 November 1858, 'I have sent you a copy of my report to the War Office, which really is "Confidential" ... In the little Vol. which is most exceedingly "confidential", you will find my ideas about training Nurses - God knows whether I shall ever be able to carry them out!' 4 pages, 8vo; carte-de-visite photograph, to:) – Mr Dean – Wellcome Collection (withdrawn stamp on verso of title).