Florence Nightingale arrived at the British army hospital in Scutari with thirty-eight nurses to find soldiers lying in filth, rats in the wards, broken drains and almost no supplies. More men were dying of disease than of wounds. She scrubbed, ordered, argued and counted, and every night she walked miles of corridors with a lamp, checking on the men. Later she drew charts proving that cleanliness saved lives, and changed medicine for ever. The words are imagined.