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Mary Seacole Essay Example

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Mary Seacole Essay Example
How far do the sources suggest that Mary Seacole ‘was a great help to the men in the Crimea’?

Mary Seacole is praised in both sources 1 and 2, but in source 3 it seems that Nightingale disagrees in terms of her method of helping the men, although ‘she did some good.’
Source 1 and 2 both agree that ‘she was a great help’ but for different reasons. Source 1 is agreeing to this mainly because of the fact that it is written by Sir John Hall who I Head of the Army Medical Services and we know that Seacole was rejected by all hospitals, and he would not want to write about declining one of the most loved and charitable woman in Britain at the time, especially throughout the army, ‘the assistance she gave them, made her beloved by the rank and file of the whole army’. Also, as he is Head of the Army Medical Services it’s obvious that he would not want to write negative comments on his own services. I believe the motivation of the source is to shift away the negativity of not employing her. I think source 1 can be seen as mainly reliable because he is Head of the Army Medical Services so he will be well informed but on the other hand he will not want to blame his own services for not employing her and will shift away the negativity from himself and his services, so from that point of view the source will also contain some element of bias. Much like source 1, source 2 will also be well informed because they are unpublished memoires, which also means that this source won’t be bias, but it will be limited by the fact that it’s only one man’s point of view.
It is suggested by source 1 and 2 that men preferred to go Seacole rather than ‘reporting themselves to their own doctors’ which shows that she was not only a help, but more of a help to the men than other hospitals or services. Source 2 is from memoires of an officer, therefore he is likely to have felt her influence and impact upon the Crimean war; also he may have experienced he herbal remedies. This is also

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