When I was growing up, it was Florence Nightingale, not Mother Teresa, who tended those too sick to tend themselves. Last night, while watching Simon Schama's A History of Britain episode "Victoria & Her Sisters" (first aired June, 2002), I learned of another tender, someone who volunteered to serve as a nurse during the Crimean War, but was rejected by Nightingale.
Mary Seacole was born of a Scottish father and Black Jamaican mother. She was knowledgable in traditional medicines and, after saying to hell with Nightingale, traveled to Crimea on her own dime and set up a l'hôpital des refusés (the British Hotel) near the front lines -- much closer to those lines than Nightingale's hospital. Indeed, Seacole, or Mother Seacole as the soldiers called her, was known for tending to the wounded while under fire, making her more a medic than a field nurse. And in a dress, no less! Amazing. Simply amazing.
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