ABSTRACT
A dense network of military hospitals was established along the Revolutionary army's lines of communication. The final demise of Parliament's military hospitals and welfare provision was an inevitable sequel to the acute economic depression of 1659-1660 and yet this was not a unique event in European history. The standards of casualty care achieved at home during the English Civil Wars were not applied when armies were sent abroad. In the military hospitals, alcoholic drinks were invariably provided for the deceased's fellow patients after the ceremony. In both civilian and military hospitals nurses were forbidden to maintain anything but the most strictly moral lifestyle. Sufficient material survives to enable us to infer that the nursing and medical staff of the Savoy and Ely House military hospitals provided a significantly greater contribution to the work of caring for their soldier patients than has previously been credited to them.
