ABSTRACT
Florence Nightingale saw sanitary reform of the army as a prerequisite for holding the Empire. The soldiers were dying not from war wounds but from preventable diseases such as cholera, hepatitis and typhoid, and the lack of sanitation. The absorbing question in Florence's mind at this stage was how to retain the Empire, as the events of the mutiny had shaken its foundations, and so she was primarily concerned with the health of the army. Nevertheless, even at this early stage, the idea of occupying India by another means, through the introduction of modern sanitation, was apparent in her thought: 'The observance of sanitary law should be as much part of the future regime of India as the holding of military positions or as civil government itself. It would be a noble beginning of a new order of things to use hygiene as the handmaid of civilization'.
