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Archive Reference / Library Class No.D2546/ZZ/48
TitleLetter from Florence Nightingale to Dr Dunn requesting his assistance in caring for her maid Fanny who is suffering from indigestion
Date25 Oct 1879
Extent1 item
LevelItem
RepositoryDerbyshire Record Office
SenderFlorence Nightingale
Sender LocationLea Hurst
RecipientDr Dunn
Recipient LocationNot given
Archive CreatorChristopher Blencowe Noble Dunn of Crich (1836-1892), medical doctor
Florence Nightingale of Lea Hurst, Derbyshire and Embley, Hampshire (1820-1910), nurse and social reformer
Administrative HistoryFanny Dowding, Florence Nightingale's maid
Access CategoryOpen
FormatDocument
CopiesA digital copy can also be viewed on the public computers at the record office.
This letter has been digitised and can be viewed on The Florence Nightingale Digitization Project website at http://archives.bu.edu/web/florence-nightingale
Transcript or IndexLea Hurst
Oct 25/79
My dear Sir
Would you be so good as to look at my maid Fanny, who appears to be suffering severely from indigestion? 
It is not her fault in this case: but when I am in charge of 3 households as I have been here every year & especially this year, I am obliged in some measure to "do at Rome as Rome does" and there London servants insist upon meat 3 times a day: a hurried meal of heavy meat at one: & a heavy meal of meat & pudding at nine p.m. 
But what was her fault is: that she has been allowing her bowels to be irregular that she hav [crossed through] being very sick: and that yesterday she took without telling me the medicine of another maid who had been suffering from something else & to whom I had given medical attendance from another gentleman in London. 
I really should have thought my Fanny had had more sense. 
She asked me to let her have your Magic medicine of which you kindly sent me the prescription for her in London  I believe it was steel with efforvescence. 
But I was & always am unwilling to have old Prescriptions used without the Prescriber seeing the Patient again 
(I should not be sorry if it were made "illegal" to "make up" a Prescription say six weeks after date, unless directions for so doing were entered upon the Prescription)    
Would you be so very good as to lay down directions for Fanny as to meat & drink: as to what aprients & what medicines you would prescribe for her under what circumstances & to allow me to have the Prescriptions when we return to London? 
And if she may have the medicine she wishes for, so much the better.
AcknowledgementsTranscription completed by catalogue volunteer RJ, 2020
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