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Archive Reference / Library Class No.D2546/ZZ/62
TitleLetter (on mourning stationery), marked private, from Florence Nightingale to Dr Dunn expressing serious concerns about the mental state of her maid Fanny who appear to be suffering from a mental breakdown and suicidal thoughts
Date26 Oct 1880
DescriptionThere appears to be a second page to this letter which is missing
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 History- Fanny Dowding: Florence Nightingale's maid
- Miss Shore Smith: presumably a relative of William Shore Smith, Florence Nightingale's cousin
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 IndexPrivate & Confidential 
Lea Hurst
Oct 26/80

My dear Sir
After you left me yesterday & after Fanny had come back from her walk, I had much & rather alarming conversation with her.  She said she feels "as if she were going mad - that she "wishes to die" - that she "feels as if she wished to run straight out to walk as far as she can by herself to get rest": that "sometimes she cannot bear that any one should speak to her"
that "she cannot think" "cannot read" - that she sometimes "wakes finding herself sitting up in bed" - that "if anything goes wrong she "cannot bear it - that she feels as if something were going round and round inside her head":  that she "feels as if some one were pulling at her at the top of her her head": (that sounds like Hysteria) that "last Sunday at Church she could not sit still."  (Yet she brought me a very good report of the sermon.)  She cried very much, which relieved her. 
Some time ago, she told me that she "had no soul": then that her "soul was a very little one."  She said she "could not settle to anything." 
I was obliged to accede to her sleeping in the room she wished: she said "Tell me don't gentlefolk have fires?" but I insisted on the fire being let out. 
You may easily conceive, or perhaps you can hardly conceive how alarmed I was. 
Do you think there is any danger of her "walking straight out" & going away in the night? 
or of her going into Miss Shore Smith's (to whom I have told nothing) in the night? 
(If I were alone in the house with my own servants it would be nothing.) 
I lay listening  last night for every sound - indeed I could not sleep for the severe pain at the heart - once I thought I heard her door open & got up.  But it was nothing. 
This morning she is much better than I am - says she slept well: partly, she says, "because the room was warmer" partly because she could "keep herself quiet"  "The least thing excites me",  she says, which is perfectly true.  (It is inconceivable the way she speaks to me.  Sometimes she is aware of it & says she "can't help it". ) 
I think she got chilled on Sunday driving to Crich in the Wagonette & that her bowels did not act on that day.  Indeed they never do
AcknowledgementsTranscription completed by catalogue volunteer RJ, 2020
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