I was interested to read that Frank Hilton has long suspected Florence Nightingale of having been a laudanum addict (Letters, 3 March). Nightingale did indeed spend the 53 years on her return from Scutari as an invalid, but I am unaware that there is any evidence to suggest that this was due to an addiction to laudanum. Nightingale scholars believe that her health problems were caused by contracting Crimean fever, also known as brucellosis, which was the third most common fever in the Crimean war, after typhoid and typhus. She had been taken extremely ill when visiting the Crimea itself in the spring of 1855, although due to its incubation period, she may have contracted it in Scutari before going.
By the late 1850s, Nightingale lived more or less in seclusion, yet her output remained impressive. She worked on improving the arrangements for soldiers' health, on general hospital reform and nursing education, setting up the Nightingale Training School in 1860.
Natasha McEnroe
Director, Florence Nightingale Museum