Florence Nightingale - Lady with a Lamp

Science / Scientists Datebook: May 13 

Brief biography of Florence Nightingale, British nurse and statistician, administrator and writer, founder of modern nursing and hospital epidemiology.

(This piece is lovingly dedicated to all the nurses deeply devoted to their calling. / Tel)

 

Florence Nightingale, British pioneer of modern nursing, called the 'lady with the lamp' or sometimes 'Angel of Crimea,' contributed to reforms in the hygiene and sanitation of military hospitals. She stands as the model of nurses and those hopefuls who want to pursue a nursing profession in which her pioneering work is very well documented.

Early Years

Florence Nightingale, the second of two daughters, was born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820, into a wealthy and well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia, in Florence, Tuscany, Italy, and was named after the city of her birth. Florence's older sister Frances Parthenope had similarly been named after her place of birth, Parthenope, a Greek settlement now part of the city of Naples. The family moved back to England in 1821, with Nightingale being brought up in the family's homes at Embley, Hampshire, and Lea Hurst, Derbyshire. Her father, William Nightingale, was a wealthy landowner of Embly Park, Hampshire. He took responsibility for his two daughters' education, teaching them modern languages, history, philosophy and mathematics. Like every wealthy girl of her class, Nightingale was exposed to her family's social status.      

The Call and Nursing Pursuit

At seventeen, she felt called by God to some unnamed great cause. Florence's mother, Fanny Nightingale was primarily concerned with finding her daughter a good husband. She was therefore upset when Florence rejected the marriage proposal of Lord Houghton. There were other suitors she also refused.

At the age of twenty-five, she told her parents she wanted to become a nurse. Her parents opposed to the idea, as nursing then was associated with working class women and hospitals then were filthy and untidy. Florence remained adamant. In 1845, she began visiting hospitals and health facilities to collect more information on them.

Career Training 

Nightingale's desire to build a career in nursing was reinforced when she met Elizabeth Blackwell at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Blackwell was the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the United States. Having overcome considerable prejudice to achieve her ambition, Dr. Blackwell encouraged Nightingale.

In 1851, Florence now thirty-one, her parents finally gave Nightingale permission to train as a nurse at the Institute of Protestant Deaconnesses in Kaiserwerth, Germany. Two years later, she accepted a position as superintendent of the Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London and tried to make it a model hospital at that time. She also trained nurses, ensuring their competence. 

Nightingale to Crimean War

The year 1854 was the greatest challenge of Nightingale as a nurse. This was the time of the Crimean War when the British Army embarked military campaign against the Russians in Crimea, a place near the Black Sea. Medical supplies were difficult to transport. The soldiers died, lay wounded, or got sick with cholera or dysentery. The British hospital in Scutari, Turkey had hardly facilities or sufficient doctors. One of Nightingale's influential friends, Sidney Herbert, Secretary of War, asked Nightingale to go to Scutari, supervise a team of nurses and assist the doctors there. She immediately relented.

Nightingale improved conditions immensely, essentially managing the medical complex, including handling politics and in-fighting, providing order and discipline among the nurses. The patients' death rate reduced tremendously.

Despite all dangerous exposure to illnesses and diseases, including dysentery and fever that almost killed her, Nightingale stood firm in her commitment and dedication at Scutari until the British were evacuated from Turkey in July 1856. Her achievements there made her the war's English national hero.  

Final Years and Legacy

After her return to England, Nightingale devoted to medical reforms and wrote about the importance of sanitation and diet for good health. She established the Nightingale School of Home for training nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital in London in 1860. She was completely bedridden in 1896. In 1907, she was the first woman appointed to the Order of Merit by Queen Victoria. She died in August 13, 1910. Five years later after her death, the Crimean War Monument was erected in honor of Florence Nightingale, the "lady with the lamp."  

As a pioneer in nursing, with a genius for organization and innovation, as well as a caring heart, Florence Nightingale completely changed the profession, bringing it into its modern respectable and valued position. Her courage and devotion were raised to the status of myth in which Nightingale became for all time the romantic healing heroine known as the “lady with the lamp” as her adoring patients called her. She was called such because of her habit of roaming the wards at night with a lantern, checking on their comfort and welfare. 

 

Photo credit:

Florence Nightingale. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain. Photograph by Henry Hering. 

 

Resources:

Dictionary of Women's Biography, Compiler and Editor, Jennifer Uglow, Revising Editor on Third Edition, Maggy Hendry, London: Macmillan (1999)  

Florence Nightingale. en.wikipedia.org. 

The Giant Book of Influential Women by Deborah G. Felder, London: The Book Company (1997)

 

(c) May 2010.  Tel Asiado. Inspired Pen Web. All riths reserved.