The tempers of the citizens of Marblehead, Massachusetts, were about to boil over. By the seventeen seventies, the town was home to five thousand people, making it one of the largest and richest fishing ports in the colonies, but a stark economic divide had appeared between those who owned fishing boats and those who worked on them. Things only got worse after a fisherman's wife fell ill after washing his clothes.
At the time, some thought that she had been poisoned, but after the rest of the household started to show the same symptoms, folks started to fearfully whisper about the potential real cause, smallpox, and soon more rumors spread, as did the infection. The town officials move quickly, creating an inspection committee and limiting the movement to from and around
the town. Houses where disease appeared were guarded, and those who got sick were taken away for quarantine, and, in a fit of truly paranoid behavior, all dogs in town were ordered to be killed for fear that they might be responsible for spreading the disease. The first five people to succumb to smallpox were buried across the harbor on a spit of land known as Marblehead Neck, but soon there were too many to be safely and efficiently transported.
Town officials were looking for answers. Decades earlier, a smallpox inoculation had been developed. It was proposed that a private inoculation hospital could be built on nearby cat Island. There, people would be inoculated and remain during their infectious post inoculation quarantine period. And while this seemed to be a
promising solution, in reality it was far from perfect. The price of treatment was often beyond the reach of many in the colonies, including most of these fishermen and their families. Protection was so close and yet so far. The proposal for this hospital made the working class majority of Marblehead uneasy. For those who couldn't afford services, the chances that they would accidentally contray the disease from hospital clients and die seemed very high. Town hall meetings went back and forth.
The building started, then it stopped, it then started again, and disregarding the wishes of a community at large, the hospital finally opened its doors on October sixteenth of seventeen seventy three, and staff welcomed in several hundred patients who would all stay there for thirty days. These first patients were mostly wealthy outsiders and treated their stay as a vacation, contrary to their directives to remain inside for their contagious period.
They could be seen sunning and boating and playing lawn games outside. For the humble townsfolk who lived and worked the cold waters in rocky coastline of Marblehead, it was all too much. By the time the third batch of paying clients was inoculated on December fifteenth, tensions in town had reached a boiling point, and when that group of patients was discharged back into town, fury erupted. On January twelfth of seventeen seventy four, a hospital boat was set
on fire in the harbor Whek. Later, four folks were caught stealing bedclothes from the hospital, potentially an act of sabotage by intentional contamination of their town, for which the hospital would be blamed and ideally shut down. They were soon tarred and feathered as punishment, but that didn't do much to quell the tensions. Two weeks later, on January twenty eighth, another group of men rode out to the hospital and set it on fire. The town watched it
burn to the ground. Everything was destroyed, and no sooner had the smoldering ceased did the perpetrators get caught. But their supporters were many, and all were deeply enthusiastic, marching the few miles down to Salem and demanding their release. The jailer was overpowered and the sheriff gave up, letting the men go free. Though their enemy was a common one,
the town split apart. Eventually, Marblehead's sickness and rupture would heal, and the story would become swept under the tides of history. Humans have always been at war with disease, although it's only been in the past one hundred years or so that we've had a better understanding of how it all works. For as long as our bodies have been battlegrounds, there have been those on the front lines working to win the war. I'm Aaron Mankie, and welcome to bedside, manners.
For as long as we've occupied bodies, we've needed to heal them. We move through this life hoping to live well and free from pain, but obstacles are inevitable. We're all going to get some bumps and bruises and maybe things that are far worse along the way, and when that happens, we look to people who know how to take care of us. Historically, healing traditions have been passed from person to person, generation to generation through things like families, communities,
and continents. We have long looked to healers throughout human history. The healer held a special place in the heart of the community. Historically, they used natural materials available to them. Flora and fauna were used to create decoctions and selves, tinctures and teas. Spiritual and manual therapies came into play too. They were considered good and wise, the bearers of tradition and culture, and we know that these positions were often
held by women. Myths and legends from across the world often center women at the heart of life and death. To create, to destroy, and in the case of our story today, to repair. It was a revered and mighty power, and one that came to be feared by those who wanted some power of their own. As Western Europe colonized the globe, they took aim to vilify traditions that weren't their own. They had to find ways to justify their ruthless and violent expansion. Accounts of these places were frequently
distorted and diminished in their quest for extermination. These included how a place healed its people and the community's reverence for those doing this work. Women and what they knew were seen as threats to the conquering powers, but the danger for healers didn't remain abroad. Back home, women started to be targeted by their own officials, neighbors, and even
family members. The Malleus Maleficarum, a title that literally means the Hammer of the Witches, was written in the mid fourteen hundreds by a German Catholic clergyman named Heinrich Kramer. He set out to record everything that he thought he and other scholars knew about demonology. What he accomplished instead was to set off the deadliest witch hunt in the history of the world. In his book, he suggested that a charge of sorcery should be equivalent to the legal
charge of heresy and to be executed as such. He laid out different ways to extract confessions from the accused using torture. For example, he spoke of the clear and present danger of witchcraft and gave the public ways to sniff out a witch in their midst. According to his book, there were three different classes of witches, those who harm, those who can harm and heal, and those who can only heal. The link was cemented and the results were deadly.
Scores of people across Europe were accused and executed for witchcraft during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Sources very wildly, but scholars today believe between fifty thousand and eighty thousand people were killed, and yes, while men did die, they were less frequently the victims of religious and social scrutiny. Even still, healing traditions lived on even under the threat
of death. The keepers of this knowledge continued to pass down their traditions and to work with their community, even if now their practices were inextricably linked with malevolent, ungodly forces. As centuries on European doctrine moved away from the home and degree granting physicians colleges were created. Healing became less about traditional knowledge and more about leveraging wealth and social connections to gain acceptance into medical schools, which function similarly
to social clubs. In fact, many of these newly minted physicians would go an entire career without so much as touching a human body. SEMy physicians went to great lengths to distinguish themselves from country doctors and folk healers. They dismissed traditional healing practices, even if their own, such as leeching, bleeding, and treating patients with any number of poisonous compounds, were
barbaric at best and deadly at worst. Women, of course, were long left out of these opportunities to professionalize alongside men. In the early twentieth century, though, a socially sanctioned avenue for care appeared for women who could pay for the privilege. They could go to nursing school and earn their degrees and stripes. Far from holding a place of reverence, though, it was thought that women who entered into this field into the workforce were desperate and impoverished. Nursing was far
from being viewed as an honorable vocation. But that is until one woman came along and changed the tide of public opinion. Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, on May twelfth of eighteen twenty. She inherited a British family of wealth and status, as well as their liberal humanitarian outlook on the world. Her grandfather was an abolitionist who sat in the House of Commons, while her father, William, had fought for parliament reform and other various social causes.
As a child, Florence and her sister Francis received a fine education. They studied everything from history and literature to math and philosophy. At a young age, it was clear that Florence possessed a mind that saw the world through gathering data. She loved charts and graphs, filling notebooks with
notes and numbers, and collecting informational pamphlets. Through the course of her family's European travels, Florence had hope for her future, and in February of eighteen thirty seven, she had a vision. That was when she believed she had received a revelation from God. In her telling, Florence was directed to live
her life in service to others. She began paying visits to the sick and the infirm and learned of care work, but to be a nurse at this moment was seen as grunt work, the vocation of women with lower social standing. Women of Florence's class and upbringing were bound by ideals of domesticity, the grime and grudge of hospital wards were wholly unsuitable for their delicate constitutions. For many in her peer group, they were expected to marry, well, have children,
and stay home. This was the height of the good life, or so she was told. Florence, though, didn't want to be put in this box. She fought against the conventions of her station, even turning down a marriage proposal. So she set out to become a nurse and publicly declared her intent to do so. She began to travel, spending time with different hospitals, healers, and teachers to learn about
the craft. She journeyed throughout Europe, studying both hospital systems and patient care, and as her experience grew, so too did her network of professional contacts, establishing a long list of personal champions as a well bred englishwoman, though the latter would become indispensable to affecting systematic change. Her parents, though, were appalled at her career choice. By eighteen fifty she had enrolled in nursing school in Germany. Despite their protests.
By eighteen fifty three, her father relented. He would allow Florence to do as she wished, and even afforded her an allowance to do it. His blessing and financial commitment to Florence came at a pivotal moment.
You see.
In eighteen fifty three, the Crimean War began. After months of escalating tension, Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war and soon brought their allies into the fray. Back in England, the day to day realities of the war were broadcast in a new novel way. An underwater cable from Crimea to England allowed news to reach in the span of a few hours. It was one of the first wars to be documented extensively by journalists. The British general public saw what was happening. The death toll was
high and the barracks were filthy. The troop's care was being mismanaged, as evidenced by ever climbing mortality rates. In eighteen fifty four, Florence received another message. This time it wasn't to call for God, but a letter from England's Secretary of War asking her to assemble a team of nurses and head to the front lines in Turkey. Wounded British soldiers were dying in the field hospitals, and they wanted her help. By mid October, she committed herself to
the project. Within a week, she had assembled a team of thirty eight nurses and left for the front. On November fourth, they arrived at Scutari, the British Army barracks in Istanbul. They had been allocated to the British Army for the duration of the war and had been converted into a temporary military hospital. The main British camp was across the Black Sea, almost three hundred and fifty miles away in Crimea. They quickly got to work alongside medical officers,
assessing the situation and attending to the wounded. The medical men originally didn't want the women there and felt undermined by their presence, but they also needed the help. What Florence and her team saw at the barracks was utter square piles of sewage on the floor, in claustrophobic wards, men's weeping, gangerous wounds, filled with maggots, foul smelling, soiled bed linens and bandages, and rotting food. This moment would
be approving ground for her. Everything that she had been studying for had been leading her to this, so she turned to face it with grace and ferocity. The changes to the barracks were swift. Florence and her team brought muscle and money. Soon new life was breathed into the space. New windows were installed, floors were refinished, and large bath tubs were brought in and kept fresh and warm for tired men. Fresh linens were always made available, and there
were finally enough beds. But conditions weren't sparkling. They were far better than before. Some of Florence's handpick nurses left, but more continued to arrive. For the soldiers, the kindly faces of these women were a welcome sight. There was finally enough care to go around. The ounce of Florence and her team began appearing in newspapers back in England. Coverage was effusive and poetic, painting her to be both
a savior and saint on the front lines. Through these stories, the public's opinion about the field of nursing began to shift. You can think about Florence as something of an influencer. She took something decidedly uncool and made it admirable. Nursing was no longer seen as simple menial labor. It was something valorous. She brought respectability to the women who were already doing the work, and for wealthy women cloistered at home due to society's expectations of them, nursing proved to
be a socially acceptable vehicle for escape. The papers wrote about the Lady with the Lamp, a specter that feels almost mythological in its design. It was reported that Florence worked upwards of twenty hours a day, but relieved all of her nurses at eight p m. She would make nightly rounds her oil lamp, moving slowly and steadily through the barracks, a welcome sight for all who lingered there.
But even still, men continued to perish. In fact, during Florence and her team's first winter at Scutari, over four thousand soldiers died, with a death toll of about forty two percent. Florence insisted that these deaths could be attributed to inadequate nutrition and supplies, and pressed for more support from the government. As the working conditions at Scutari began to improve, Florence was able to take leave and tour
other hospitals treating other wounded men. But while she was in Crimea, she fell dangerously ill with a high fever When she was well enough to travel again, she returned to Scutari, where she became one of the patients attended to by her own nursing staff. She recovered and returned her sick bed to someone else. By March of eighteen fifty six, peace had come to the region. She stayed for a few more months, returning home to England in August of that year. She was welcomed home with open
arms and hailed as a national hero. She had become an icon during the time she was away, and the British public wanted to celebrate her, but Florence just wanted to rest. She had contracted brucellosis on the front, its lingering flew like effects haunting her attempts to return to a normal life. Her work, though, wasn't done. Florence had amassed a huge body of data while she was working at Scutari and planned to present it to the Royal
Commission on the Health of that Army. When she finally finished compiling all of her notes, though she realized that something had gone terribly wrong. She could now more fully understand what had happened at the barracks. The soldiers hadn't died due to malnutrition or lack of resources, as she had originally believed, but from communicable diseases such as typhoid and dysentery. She concluded that the huge death tolls under her care were a result of poor sanitation and her
own ignorance about hygiene protocols. Yes, they had cleaner surroundings than when she arrived, but that hadn't been enough. Florence knew what she had to do next. She presented her findings with shame, with vigor, and with a new solution. She began to campaign for public health and worked to educate hospitals in her orbit about better sanitation practices. Florence
was determined to write what had gone so wrong. She now realized that so much of what had killed these men could have been prevented, and she was determined to never let it happen again. Florence looked ahead to life after the war and determined what she wished to do next. She had become a public figure, a national hero, and a respected figure in the field of healthcare. Eyes looked toward her, and she undoubtedly felt the weight of expectation.
Florence published her report and, pulling on her established relationships within the government helped to open an Army medical college in eighteen fifty nine, a military hospital in eighteen sixty one, and a permanent Army Sanitary Commission. In eighteen sixty two, a national fund in her name was established for the purpose of founding a training school for nurses. This was the only recognition of her services that she would publicly accept.
By eighteen sixty the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses was established. The first class graduated five years later and they haven't stopped since. The school, now part of King's College, London, is still around to this very day. Although the infections that she picked up during the war would become chronic, she campaigned tirelessly for reform. During the American Civil War, she was frequently contacted for advice on how to manage
field hospitals. She worked with India's army on their sanitation problems. She went on to train medics in the Franco Prussian War and even trained Linda Richards, the first woman who would become a certified nurse in the United States. Florence Nightingale died at age ninety on August thirteenth of nineteen ten in London, and although she was offered a burial place in Westminster Abbey. Her final resting place is far
more humble. She's buried in a churchyard with a headstone that simply has her initials and dates of her birth and death. Her legacy extends beyond her long life, and her influence has stood the test of time. The character that was created in the popular wartime press cemented Florence in the public's imagination. Today, she's remembered most strikingly as that lady with the lamp, but the bulk of her career, which covers some of her most important work, took place
in the decades after she returned home from war. Florence is a picture of civility in a moment that was far from civilized and proved to be an attractive distraction from the true nature of the army's complete mismanagement of the war. And she was also deeply human, far from perfect, and partial to beliefs that would be controversial today. We
remember the symbol, the icon that is Florence. The real changes that Florence brought were fueled by flesh and blood humanity, first by addressing the shortcomings of others, and then by committing the remainder of her life to rectify hers. Florence couldn't heal her own chronic illness, nor could she undo the choices that were made in Scutari, but she did what she could for decades afterward, and the field of nursing around the globe has never been the same. Care
work is powerful. It takes a special kind of person to dig deep into the trenches of human suffering, and for those folks we are grateful, but we're not quite done just yet. If you stick around through this brief sponsor break, my teammate Robin Minister, will tell you one more story about another healer finding their place in the world.
You could say that Mary was a healer by birthright. Her mother was a master of folk medicine with those in Jamaica referred to as a doctress. She'd a practice based in hygiene and herbs and a working understanding of tropical diseases and basic surgery. Before she won her freedom and moved to Kingston, she nursed fellow enslaved people on a nearby sugar plantation. Mary inherited her mother's wisdom and practices,
and she also had spirit. Her father had been in the Scottish Army, which gave her a life of more social mobility than she otherwise might have had. He had traversed the seas, and this wanderlust is what she inherited from him. As a teenager, she traveled twice to England and around the Caribbean. She eventually married and stayed so for eight years until her husband passed away. She would go on to live her life as a single woman, focusing her efforts on designing and pursuing a life she
had only dreamt of as a child. By eighteen fifty, at the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in Kingston, she found herself utilizing the healing arts that she had learned from her mother, and by eighteen fifty two she was living and working with her brother in Panama and once again had a chance to serve the sick as the country was rocked by a cholera outbreak. She traveled to London the following year and stumbled across a newspaper headline
that would change the course of her life. She learned about the Crimean War and was termed to travel to the front and offer her services. She was dismayed though, when her offers were rejected by British authorities and Florence Nightingale herself. She decided to pay her own way, though she was told there were no nursing vacancies and no need for her services. As to why this happened, well, it's still debated by scholars today. Some insist that Mary
Suekole wasn't qualified. Others say it was because she didn't go through the accepted application channels. Others believed it was outright racism. She was certainly hurt, but she wasn't going to be dissuaded. Tapping into her other skill set, hospitality and mercantilism, she made her way to Scutari, where she opened a restaurant for wounded and sick men. Here they would find respite for being transported to the hospital for care.
For this work, she was herald as a hero, appearing in newspapers alongside Florence Nightingale, being called the mother of the Army and Mother Sekul. Even Florence softened to her appearance on the battlefront, recognizing her contributions to the care and morale of the soldiers. When a peace treaty was finally signed in March thirtieth eighteen fifty six, the troops began to funnel out. She would be one of the last to leave Crimea, staying until the last possible moment
to sol off all parts of her business. This endeavor was unsuccessful and she returned to London penniless. She didn't fade into obscurity, though, you see. Her reputation grew and her fans amassed. Countless lives were touched by her care, and it was now time for her to receive some in kind. In eighteen fifty seven, forty thousand people attended a four day fundraising gallet to help her get back
on her feet. Queen Victoria and her family established the Sea Coal Fund to ensure she live out the rest of her days in comfort. On the one hundredth anniversary of the Crimean War, the Jamaican Nurses Association named their headquarters the Merry Sea Coull House. She was also posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in nineteen ninety one. Across Upon in England, a painting of her now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. She was voted the greatest
Black Britain in a two thousand and four poll. Today, a statue of her stands at Saint Thomas's Hospital, former site of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery. Nearby is a statue of Florence herself, and while some mostly staunch defenders of Florence's work and detractors of Mary's, have been irked by this proximity, what has proven to be true is that there's room enough in this world for two heroes, and should we be so lucky to find more in our.
Midst Grimm and Mild Presents Bedside Manners was executive produced by Aaron Manke and narrated by Aaron Manke and Robinminitter. Writing for this season was provided by Robin Miniter, with research by Sam Alberty, Taylor Haggerdorn and Robin Miniter. Production assistants was provided by Josh Thain, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. You can learn more about this show, the Grim and Mild team and all the other podcasts that we make over at Grimandmild dot com, and as always, thanks for listen.
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