A Medical Officer's Account of the Crimean War: The Times Report

The Battle of the Alma in 1854, though a triumph for the coalition of British, French, and Turkish forces in the Crimean War, had a particularly high casualty rate. This excerpt from an article in The Times of October 12, 1854, indicates both the horrors of the war and the elation felt by the battle’s victors. “Pêle-mêle” is the original French phrase now spelt “pell-mell”; the “balls” referred to are bullets; “vis medicatrix natura” is a Latin phrase meaning “the healing power of nature”; “blue-jackets” was a term for sailors; “Sinope” was the Black Sea port where the Russians had destroyed the fleet of the Ottoman Empire; “sables” is a generic term for furs, originally applied to fur from the sable; “line-of-battle ships” refers to a fleet drawn up ready to begin fighting, in which the ships are ahead and astern of each other at stated distances.