| Administrative History | - Harriet Limb, born about 1862, living in Holloway
- Edward Gaylor of Belper, medical officer.
- William Yeomans of Holloway House, land agent to the Nightingale family and Poor Law Guardian
- Mary Bratby, wife of John Bratby, fomer servant of the Nightingale family, living in retirement in Holloway
- William Shore Smith: Florence Nightingale's cousin
Sources: Civil registration indexes, 1871 and 1881 census |
| Transcript or Index | Private
Lea Hurst
Cromford
Sept. 14/79
My dear Sir
Pray let me thank you for your two kind notes.
And first about the Limbs.
I am very thankful that the married sister's attack you consider a slight one. & I heard yesterday that both were downstairs but that you considered Harriet the stronger of the two. I am sure that you will tell me what Diet you wish for them. Hitherto neither sister has had anything from here but Clear Soup or Beef Tea.
Shall you wish either of them to go by Age to a Convalescent Hospital?
About the water in their well which I believe you & I are anxious to have analysed: You mention Dr Gaylor's having undertaken to do so (from their well):
What I understood was - that Dr Gaylor, having emptied (? washed out) a quart bottle, which had contained beer or wine, filled it with water from Mr Yeomans' pump - that he took it home & forgot it - that his servant or Assistant found it and said: " Here is something, Sir, which stinks awful:" & threw it away.
that Dr G. thereupon went to Mr Yeomans & told him "that his water was unfit for human consumption." The terror spread through the village: & Mrs Bratby wrote to me (in London) a terror-struck letter. that Dr G was afterwards pressed upon this point, & retracted (to Mr Yeomans), still maintaining however that the water was not good, which I dare say is ^quite^ true.
Now what we want is, is it not? to have the water properly analysed. Upon receiving your last note I wrote to Mr Shore Smith in London about this - I have not yet heard from him.* And I rather regret not having written to the Army Sanitary Commission in London (with which I have to do) about analysing the water.
What do you recommend?
* I have since heard from Mr Shore Smith. He says: does "Dr Dunn know of any one "handy" who would do it roughly, to see if there is enough to cause anything like the Typhoid?"
[written in pencil:] Something must be done, I suppose. |