Dorothea Dix of the American Sanitary Commission modelled military hospitals in and around Washington, DC, on Florence Nightingale's hospitals in the Crimea.

ECONOMIST: Military history

Four times as many were perishing from infection and disease as were dying in battle, and the death rate in Nightingale's hospital was higher than in others until the Sanitary Commission arrived and flushed out the sewers upon which the hospital was built.

BBC: The lady without the lamp

Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief sanitary official, told Ekho Moskvy radio that he has sent a letter to the European Commission requesting a guarantee that meat products sold to Russia don't contain horse meat.

NPR: Russia Seeks EU Guarantees Over Horse Meat Scandal