The best thing to come out of the terrible suffering of the Crimean War was the establishment of nursing as a recognised profession thanks to the work of Florence Nightingale and her team at Scutari military hospital. The author of this book, Lady Alicia Blackwood, also set up a hospital in Scutari - but for the wives, widows and children of soldiers rather than the men themselves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was friction between the two formidable ladies, with Florence evidently regarding Alicia as something of a nuisance. Lady Alicia's book is an extraordinarily interesting account of her work, with detailed descriptions of the suffering of those in her care and acute observations of the manners and customs of the Turkish women in Scutari.