On June 30, 2016, the unveiling of a statue commemorating Mary Seacole, supposed to be a symbol of recognition for a black British heroine, turned into a source of dispute. Critics claimed that Seacole does not deserve to be named a nurse; however, as shown in Seacole’s autobiography, dispatches from the Crimean War, and biographies on Seacole, she is well worthy of the status. From an early age, Seacole had established her future as a nurse. Her mother was well respected in Kingston, Jamaica as a doctress. By fusing generations of African culture with local Caribbean herbal remedies, she provided service to inexperienced European doctors and comfort to Creole patients. As a child, Seacole admired her mother, and consequently inherited “a yearning for medical knowledge which has never deserted me.” She learned what herbs and roots for which to look, where they were found and how they were used, but also what they tasted like and what effect they had on the body. It was this experience that later assisted her in treating patients in Central America, and tending to soldiers in the Crimean War. Despite opposition from critics, Mary Seacole should be regarded as an influential nurse of the Victorian era due to her advancements in the treatment of cholera, her perseverance against racial standards, and the compassion exhibited in her aid.
In 1851, Seacole visited Cruces, Panama, and treated many cases of cholera, which subsequently led to her discovery of its pathology, and being able to prevent it. Once, a man became ill after dining, and shortly thereafter died; it was assumed the cause was food poisoning. Seacole asked to see his corpse and described the symptoms of “the distressed face, sunken eye, cramped limbs, and discoloured shrivelled skins” and immediately recognized the cause of death to be cholera. Soon after, another man fell ill with cholera, but Mary was ready with preparations of mustard and calomel (mercuric chloride), which saved his life. This act brought many people to her, locals and visitors alike, to cure the cholera epidemic. The circumstances of patients taught Seacole about the distribution of cholera: the variations in presentation and progress, and the most effective way to treat the patient based on the condition. To discover the pathology of the illness, Seacole conducted an autopsy in secrecy on an infant whom she had failed to cure. She bribed the man sent to bury it in order to obtain the body, and described in her autobiography, “although novel to me, and decidedly useful, they were what every medical man well knows.” She had realized that cholera absorbs the body’s fluid into the bowel, taking away strength and nourishment, and replacing them with water. With this information, Seacole gained confidence in her treatment, and aimed to provide more prevention to cholera rather than the cure. To avoid the disease, she rarely recommended the use of opium, but rather prescribed poultices, mercury rubs, or cinnamon water (which is now one of the modern treatments in treating diarrhea). Soon, she herself fell to the illness, but she recovered quickly. During her time in Cruces, she had treated different cases of cholera, learned about the internal effects it had on the body, and most importantly, she knew what it felt to suffer the disease. All of this knowledge would come to help her later during her time in Crimea.
In spring of 1854, the Crimean War had been recently declared. Seacole had spent time working and caring for soldiers, and war was imminent, so she decided she would go there as a doctress. By the time Mary reached London in October, the Battle of Alma had caused numerous sicks and invalids to be brought to hospitals in Scutari, and as a result, “the numbers in hospital were originally about 1,000, which were raised to 2,200 by this new influx…” Due to conditions such as relentless rainfall and overcrowded ships, cholera could arrive again and spread. Florence Nightingale was asked by Sidney Herbert, the British Government’s Secretary-at-War, to organize a group of trained nurses to attend to the soldiers. After quickly interviewing applicants, Nightingale and her group of nurses left for Scutari on October 21, and Seacole had missed the first deadline.
However, Seacole was not staying idle, and strived to be sent as a nurse despite facing racial discrimination. Since arriving in Southampton on October 18, she had applied directly to the War Office in order to be sent out as a hospital nurse. This plan failed, as no one took her background in tropical medicine seriously. Seacole persisted, and had an interview with one of Nightingale’s companions who, as Seacole describes in her autobiography, gave her “the same reply, and I read in her face the fact, that had there been a vacancy, I should not have been chosen to fill it.” Seacole questioned if it was possible that they had turned her away because of her race, asking, “Did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat duskier skin than theirs?” Seacole, and her other black peers, faced harsh racial inequality in the realm of nursing. This is shown in comments written on candidate’s letters by Mrs. Herbert and her fellow workers to validate why they were refused. Similar to Seacole, Elizabeth Purcell’s application, there are notes of high praise- “she was sober, honest, cleanly, active, intelligent and good-tempered, and came by recommendation of a surgeon apothecary and a chemist”, but she ended up rejected due to her being “almost black.”
Despite these setbacks, Seacole decided she would commission herself to travel to Balaklava, Crimea. It was a confined place, and hospitals filled quickly with cases of cholera and dysentery. As soon as she arrived, she did as much as she could to help the sick and wounded, as observed by Dr. Douglas Reid, stating, “out of the goodness of her heart and at her own expense, supplied hot tea to the poor sufferers while they were waiting to be lifted into the boats…In rain and snow, in storm and tempest, day after day she was…with her stove and kettle…” In addition, she eased tight bandages and redressed wounds, and held their hands, but mostly, she listened with compassion to soldiers’ last words, and aimed to lighten the moods of the more healthy ones.
Many people called attention to her benevolence and kindness, as well as her dedication, in her care for soldiers. Times correspondent William Russell admired her, expressing that “a more tender or skillful hand about a wound or broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons.” Seacole was mostly found on the battlefield, tending to soldiers on both sides, “riding forward with two mules in attendance, one carrying medicaments and the other food and wine,” rather than in a separate nursing station like Nightingale’s nurses. Her herbal medicines she had carried from childhood came to use in healing soldiers who “would seek her advice… in preference to reporting themselves to their own doctors,” which signified how effective her methods were in comparison to doctors of the time. In addition, the information she collected from her work in Cruces provided her with “the secret of a recipe for cholera and dysentery… bestowed with an amount of personal kindness…she deemed essential to the cure.” She provided help to both those who could and could not pay, but rather giving, as described in a poem published in Punch magazine,“her aid to all who prayed,”making sure she always contributed “kind words, and acts, and gold.”
When one researches nurses during the Victorian era, Florence Nightingale is the most well-known and regarded nurse, while Mary Seacole is noted infrequently. However, Seacole deserves to be recognized as an influential nurse alongside Nightingale as a result of her advancements in cholera prevention, determination to overcome racial prejudice, and kindness in her aid. She discovered the pathology of cholera in Cruces, which improved prevention of the disease, and commissioned herself to Crimea when turned down by Nightingale’s nurses due to her race. In spite of the racial prejudice she received, she still treated her patients with grace and prestige, all while being effective in caring for them.