Writing box, 1855 (c)

This box was used by Dr John Sutherland of the Sanitary Commission during the Crimean War (1854-1856). Having made his mark with his inquiry into the cholera epidemic of 1848-1849, in 1855 Sutherland was asked by the new government of Lord Palmerston to head a commission to inquire into the sanitary condition of the Army of the East. Sutherland and the other two members of the commission reached Constantinople in March 1855 and reduced the death rate in the hospital at Scutari by half within a matter of weeks.

Continuing on to the Crimea, the commission's measures to overhaul sanitary conditions in the field hospitals and camps proved equally efficacious. Most of Sutherland's recommendations in the reports of the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army in 1858 and also of the State of the Army in India in 1863 were put into practice.

Donated by Mrs N McDonald Hobley