Crimean War gained worldwide attention for pioneering and publicising modern nursing while treating the wounded. The Crimean War also saw the first tactical use of railways and other modern inventions, such as the electric telegraph, with the first "live" war reporting to "The Times" by William Howard Russell. Some credit Russell with prompting the resignation of the sitting British government through his reporting of the lacklustre condition of British forces deployed in Crimea. Additionally, the telegraph reduced the independence of British overseas possessions from their commanders in London due to such rapid communications. Newspaper readership informed public opinion in the United Kingdom
William Ritchie Russell William Ritchie Russell William Ritchie Russell CBE FRSE (7 February 1903–8 December 1980) was a 20th-century Scottish neurologist. Russell was born in Edinburgh on 7 February 1903 the eldest of six children of Beatrice Ritchie, the daughter of civil engineer James Ritchie, and William Russell, Professor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. The family lived at 3 Walker Street in Edinburgh's West End. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (partly under his father). He graduated with an MB ChB in 1926 and then became a physician and house surgeon at Edinburgh