I could not understand for the life of me why Florence Nightingale was referenced
in this story and not Clara Barton. Her service during the Civil War was rather
well known also and the passengers of the Wagon Train would have heard of the
woman called 'the angel of the battlefield'.
Robert Horton picks up Polly Bergen who was stranded after her stagecoach was attacked and all killed saved her. She's a woman back from Europe where she studied under Florence Nightingale and is now a nurse much to the consternation of her parents Howard Wendell and Eleanor Audley.
But she has also learned from the sanitary practices of Louis Pasteur and her idea is to use the Wagon Train as an experimental lab of sorts. In addition to preaching sanitation to the pilgrims, Bergen also creates a hospital wagon.
She has need of it when Kathleen Freeman and Morgan Woodward's kids all come down with scarlet fever. This is where Bergen is truly tested.
Knowing how well known Barton was in post Civil War USA I could not understand the references to Florence Nightingale nor the opposition of the Wagon Train women to her who think that nursing is for fallen women somehow. Clara Barton was anything but that.
How could the show's writers and producer miss this?
Robert Horton picks up Polly Bergen who was stranded after her stagecoach was attacked and all killed saved her. She's a woman back from Europe where she studied under Florence Nightingale and is now a nurse much to the consternation of her parents Howard Wendell and Eleanor Audley.
But she has also learned from the sanitary practices of Louis Pasteur and her idea is to use the Wagon Train as an experimental lab of sorts. In addition to preaching sanitation to the pilgrims, Bergen also creates a hospital wagon.
She has need of it when Kathleen Freeman and Morgan Woodward's kids all come down with scarlet fever. This is where Bergen is truly tested.
Knowing how well known Barton was in post Civil War USA I could not understand the references to Florence Nightingale nor the opposition of the Wagon Train women to her who think that nursing is for fallen women somehow. Clara Barton was anything but that.
How could the show's writers and producer miss this?