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Famous
People > Florence Nightingale
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Florence
Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (May 12, 1820 - August 13,
1910) - The Lady With The Lamp - was the pioneer of modern nursing.
Born into a wealthy and well-connected British family in Florence,
Italy, she was named after the city of her birth, as was her older
sister born at Parthenope. A brilliant and strong-willed woman, she
rebelled against the expected role for a woman of her status, which
was to become an obedient wife.
Inspired
by what she understood to be a divine calling (first experienced in
1837 at the age of 17 at Embley Park and later throughout her life),
Nightingale made a commitment to nursing, a career with a poor reputation
and filled mostly by poorer women.
Traditionally, the role of nurse was handled by female "hanger-ons"
who followed the armies -- they were equally like to function as cooks
or prostitutes. Nightingale was particularly concerned with the appalling
conditions of medical care for the legions of the poor and indigent.
She announced her decision to her family in 1845, evoking intense
anger and distress from her family, particularly her mother. |
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In December 1844, in response to a pauper's death in a workhouse infirmary
in London that became a public scandal, Nightingale became the leading
advocate for improved medical care in the infirmaries, and immediately
engaged the support of Charles Villiers, the president of the Poor
Law Board. This led to her active role in the reform of the Poor Laws,
extending far beyond the provision of medical care.
In 1846 she visited Kaiserwerth, a pioneering hospital established
and managed by an order of Catholic sisters in Germany, and was greatly
impressed by the quality of medical care and by the commitment and
practises of the sisters.
Rejection of marriage proposal
In
1851 she rejected the marriage proposal of politician and poet Richard
Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, against her mother's wishes.
Convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow
her calling to nursing, Nightingale continued to reject his proposal.
When in Rome in 1847, recovering from a mental breakdown precipitated
by a continuing crisis of her relationship with Milnes, Nightingale
met Sidney Herbert, a brilliant politician who had been Secretary
at War (1845-46), a position he would hold again (1852-1854) during
the Crimean War. Herbert was already married but he and Nightingale
were immediately attracted to each other and they became life-long
close friends. Herbert was instrumental in facilitating Nightingale's
pioneering work in Crimea and in the field of nursing, and Nightingale
became a key adviser to Herbert in his political career.
Career
began at Kaiserwerth
Florence
Nightingale's career in nursing began in earnest in 1851 when she
received four months training in Germany as a deaconess of Kaiserwerth.
She undertook the training over strenuous family objections concerning
the risks and social implications of such activity, and the Catholic
foundations of the hospital. While at Kaiserwerth, Florence reported
having her most important intense and compelling experience of her
divine calling.
On August 12, 1853 Nightingale took a post of superintendent at the
Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street,
London, a position she held until October 1854. Her father had given
her an annual income of £500 - roughly $50,000 in present terms
- that allowed her to live comfortably and to pursue her career.
Her most famous contribution was during the Crimean War, which became
her central focus when reports began to filter back to Britain about
the horrific conditions for the wounded. On October 21, 1854 Nightingale
and a staff of 38 women volunteer nurses, trained by Nightingale and
including her aunt Mai Smith, were sent to the Crimea, with the authorisation
of Sidney Herbert.
The
Hospital in Scutari
In Scutari (modern-day Uskudar in Istanbul, Turkey ) Nightingale and
her nurses found wounded soldiers being badly cared for by overworked
medical staff in the face of official indifference. Medicines were
in short supply, hygiene was being neglected, and mass infections
were common, many of them fatal. There was no equipment to process
food for the patients.
Nightingale and her compatriots began by thoroughly cleaning the hospital
and equipment, and reorganizing patient care. Although she met resistance
from the doctors and officers, her changes vastly improved conditions
for the wounded and by April dropped mortality rates by 40 per cent
to just two per cent. She sent many letters to Herbert, to facilitate
better medical care.
Reportedly she treated 2,000 patients herself. She also contracted
Crimean Fever. She is remembered today because of the compassion,
care and administrative skills that she introduced to the profession
of nursing, to patient care and to the maintenance of medical records.
Nightingale's work inspired massive public support throughout England,
where she was celebrated and admired as "The Lady of The Lamp"
after the Grecian lamp she always carried in her tireless evening
and night-time visits to injured soldiers. Nightingale's lamp also
allowed her to work late every night, maintaining meticulous medical
records for the hospital, and writing personal letters to the family
of every soldier who died in the hospital. The depth of her commitment
to the care of her patients in Crimea earned her the everlasting respect
and affection of the common soldier.
Heroic
return home
Nightingale
returned to Britain a heroine on August 7, 1857 and, according to
the BBC, was arguably the most famous Victorian after Queen Victoria
herself.
Florence moved from her family home in Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire
to the Burlington Hotel in Piccadilly. However, she was stricken by
a fever of possible psychosomatic origin, in part a delayed response
to the stress of her work in the Crimean War and her bout with Crimean
Fever. She barred her mother and sister from her room and rarely left
it. It has been suggested that she may have suffered from bipolar
disorder or myalgic encephalitis.
In response to an invitation from Queen Victoria, and despite the
limitations of confinement to her room, Florence Nightingale played
the central role in the establishment of the Royal Commission on the
Health of the Army, of which Sidney Herbert became chairman. As a
woman, Nightingale could not be appointed to the Royal Commission,
however she wrote the commission's 1,000-plus page detailed report
that included detailed statistical reports and was instrumental in
the implementation of its recommendations.
Army
Medical School
The
report of the Royal Commission led to a major overhaul of army military
care, and to the establishment of an Army Medical School and of a
comprehensive system of army medical records.
On November 29, 1855, a public meeting to give recognition to Florence
for her work in the Crimea led to the establishment of the Nightingale
Fund, to raise funds for training of nurses and there was an outpouring
of generous donations. Sidney Herbert served as the honorary secretary
of the fund, and the Duke of Cambridge was chairman.
By 1859, Florence had £45,000 at her disposal from the Nightingale
Fund to set up the Nightingale Training School (now called the Nightingale
School of Nursing) at St Thomas' Hospital on July 9, 1860. The first
trained Nightingale nurses began work on May 16 at the Liverpool Workhouse
Infirmary. She also campaigned and raised funds for the Royal Buckinghamshire
Hospital in Aylesbury, near her family home.
Florence Nightingale wrote Notes on Nursing which was published in
1860, a slim 136 page book that served as the cornerstone of the curriculum
at the Nightingale school and other nursing schools established. Notes
on Nursing also sold well to the general reading public and is considered
as a classic introduction to nursing.
Nightingale spent the rest of her life promoting the establishment
and development of the nursing profession and organizing it into its
modern form.
Nightingale
Fund nurses
By
1882 Nightingale nurses had a growing influential presence in the
embryonic nursing profession, and some had become matrons at several
leading hospitals, including: in London, St Mary's Hospital, Westminster
Hospital, St Marylebone Workhouse Infirmary and the Royal Hospital
for Incurables at Putney; and throughout Britain, e.g. Royal Victoria
Hospital, Netley; Edinburgh Royal Infirmary; Cumberland Infirmary;
Liverpool Royal Infirmary as well as at Sydney Hospital, in New South
Wales, Australia.
After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Nightingale's
work served as an inspiration for nurses in the war, and Union government
approached her for advice to organise field medicine. Although her
ideas met official resistance they inspired the volunteer body of
United States Sanitary Commission and US volunteers like Dorothea
Dix, Clara Barton and Cornelia Hancock.
In 1869 she returned to England and, with Elizabeth Blackwell, opened
the Women's Medical College.
Mathematician
& statistician
Nightingale
had exhibited a gift for mathematics from an early age, and excelled
in the subject under the tutorship of her father. She had a special
interest in statistics, a field in which her father was an expert,
and was a pioneer in the nascent field of epidemiology. Florence made
extensive use of statistical analysis in the compilation, analysis
and presentation of statistics on medical care and public health.
In her later life, she made a comprehensive statistical study of sanitation
in Indian rural life and was the leading figure in the introduction
of improved medical care and public health service in India. See Florence
Nightingale, the passionate statistician and Biography of Nightingale
at MacTutor History of Mathematics.
She invented a diagram she called the coxcomb or polar area chart—better
known today as the pie chart—to depict changing patient outcomes in
the military field hospital she managed. She made extensive use of
the coxcomb to present reports on the nature and magnitude of the
conditions of medical care in the Crimean War to Members of Parliament
and civil servants who would have been unlikely to read or understand
traditional statistical reports. As such, she was a pioneer in the
visual presentation of information, now pioneered by Edward Tufte,
and has earned high respect in the field of information ecology. See
Polar area chart, or coxcomb, diagram.
In 1858, Florence Nightingale was elected the first female member
of the Royal Statistical Society and she later became an honorary
member of the American Statistical Association.
Royal
recognition
In 1883 Queen Victoria awarded Florence Nightingale with the Royal
Red Cross and in 1907 she became the first woman to be awarded the
Order of Merit. She could not leave her bed after 1896 and died on
August 13, 1910.
Florence Nightingale's lasting contribution has been her role in founding
the nursing profession, and in the shining example she set for nurses
throughout the profession of commitment to patient care and hospital
administration.
There are countless examples of Florence Nightingale's continuing
legacy in the nursing profession that she founded, from the continuing
work of the Nightingale School of Nursing and throughout the entire
field of nursing education and medical records.
Today, there are three hospitals in Istanbul named after her: F. N.
Hastanesi in Sisli, (the biggest private hospital in Turkey), Metropolitan
F.N. Hastanesi in Gayrettepe and Avrupa F.N. Hastanesi in Mecidiyeköy,
all belonging to the Turkish Cardiology Foundation.
During the Vietnam War, Florence Nightingale served as an inspiration
for many US Army nurses and sparked a continuing renewal of interest
in her life and work, that, inter alia, caught the attention of Country
Joe of Country Joe and the Fish who has assembled an extensive web
site in her honor.
The Agostino Gemelli Medical Centre in Rome - the first University-based
hospital in Italy, and one of its most respected medical centers,
is the research and teaching hospital of Università Cattolica
del Sacro Cuore (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart). It honored
Florence Nightingale's contribution to the nursing profession by giving
the name Bedside Florence to a wireless ward system they have developed
that equips nurses with Compaq iPAQ hand-held computers connected
to a Windows 2000 wireless network.
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