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.
the Florence Nightingale Manuscript Exhibit
on display through April, Florida artist
Joanelle Mulrain
presents a suite of paintings
and artifacts celebrating this pioneering figure in the development of health care.