Condition: Good. DJ is good apart from some handling marks and a few small tears on the folds. Book is clean and tight with some light foxing on bottom text block.
Format: Hardcover with DJ
Published: 1969 (Books of Africa)
Pages: 339
ISBN: The fever swamps and lion-infested mountain fastnesses which barred the eastern gateway to the Mashonaland of 1891 was no place for refined young ladies, but neither these natural barriers, nor the Charter Companys restriction on the entry of women deterred Nurses Blennerhassett, Sleeman and Welby from accepting Bishop Knight-Bruces invitation to set up a mission hospital near Penhalonga.
Although the 1890 Column had already done much to open up Mashonaland there was a great need for many basic services, including medical facilities. A road to link the hinterland with the sea at Beira was still being cut and the railway was yet to be constructed. Undaunted by the magnitude of their task these nurses, whose experience of Africa was confined to a few months nursing at Johannesburg and Kimberley, sailed up the Pungwe to Mpandas from where they walked along bush paths to Penhalonga, taking some two weeks to reach Sabi Ophir Hill.
Here they immediately opened their hospital in a rough mud hut. Their supplies and personal belongings had been abandoned by their porters en route and their total equipment comprised two or three iron spoons, two tin mugs, a couple of pots of Liebigs extract of meat and a packet of Maizena. The story of the development of their medical services in the face of extreme privation and natural hazards is one of the outstanding tales of Rhodesias pioneer women and a laudable chapter in the history of nursing in southern Africa.
The dust jacket features two panels from the National Tapestry presented to the Legislative Assembly by the Womens Institutes of Rhodesia in 1963. Interesting additional information is included in the Publishers Introduction and the work is illustrated for the first time.
