FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Florence Nightingale is best known for having founded modern nursing and helped improve the care provided by hospitals. She was named after her birthplace, Florence, Italy. Raised in England during the Victorian Age, her father provided her a good education through tutors, especially in classics and mathematics. She went on to seek a career in nursing, despite her family's disapproval. Up to that time nurses had mostly been religious, monastic women or untrained helpers of low repute. Nonetheless, she perceived a calling, and chose to rebel against the traditional woman's role as a wife and mother.

Her early career began with extensive training and eventually her contributions during the Crimean War (1854-56). Florence trained in Egypt, Germany and France, before serving in a home for "gentlewomen" suffering from illness in London. During this time, she began to hear of the horrific conditions the wounded were living in during the Crimean War. She and thirty-eight other nurses volunteered to help tend to the wounded. She became famous for her dedication toward the welfare of her patients, earning the nickname "the Lady with the Lamp" for her tending the sick through the night. More significantly, she sought to improve sanitary conditions in the medical facilities. She proved her case through statistical analysis, using what she called "coxcombs," now known as "polar-area diagrams." Her proof of the effectiveness of proper hygiene for the recovery from wounds and disease led to a reform of the entire military hospital system.   Nightingale's work continued to help improve health care through the rest of her life. After the war, using money donated from her former patients and the public, she founded the Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital. This institution continued to improve what was becoming the nursing profession. Many of the nurses trained at her schools went on to become matrons at the leading hospitals in England, further solidifying and organizing nurses. Nightingale remained unmarried, and retreated increasingly into the isolation of her home because of ill health. Yet through her writing, she remained an important consultant on health issues. Her extensive use of diagrams helped to make her work understandable to professionals and the common person alike. Her work won her fame, awards, and honors during her lifetime. She was honored with the Royal Red Cross in 1883 and was also the first woman elected to the Royal Statistical Society. In 1907, she was the first woman to be granted the British Order of Merit.

By her death in 1910, Nightingale had lived to see enormous changes occur in the medical field because of her work. She broke through gender barriers and made nursing an organized and respectable profession. Health conditions improved in the military through her work and research during the Crimean War. Eventually health conditions began to improve all over England through her nursing schools. Her work was invaluable to society and set a foundation for high sanitary standards. The world is indebted to Florence Nightingale and her amazing contributions to medicine.