Florence Nightingale (left), widely regarded as the founder of modern nursing was born on today's date, May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. Miss Nightingale was born into a wealthy family in the Tuscany, Italy. Her mother, Frances Nightingale and her father, William Edward Nightingale were wealthy landowners who moved in high social circles. Florence was given the normal education for the upper class young lady, math and European languages. Florence often disagreed with her domineering mother who disapproved of Florence's interest in the welfare of the poor people who lived near her family's estates. Florence came eventually to the belief that nursing was her divine calling. Her parents had no interest in this; it was the Victorian age when a young woman was expected to marry well, not go into lowly servant-like work of nursing. In 1849, she declined a marriage proposal from an upper class man, contending that her "moral…active nature" drew her to something higher than the good wife. Against strong parental scoldings she enrolled as a student of nursing in 1850 at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany.
Early Training and the Crimean War
At Kaiserswerth the young Florence learned the basic rudiments of nursing, which including the close observation of the patients condition. And she also learned much about hospital organization, both of which would become important parts of her approach to nursing. In 1853, through personal connections, Florence became the superintendent of the Institution for Sick Gentlewomen in Distressed Circumstances, in London. Here she showed not only her skills at nursing by improving patient care and overall working conditions, but also her flair for hospital organization. After a time she began to realize that she needed to turn her attention to directly training nurses. The world soon provided the chance for such training with the outbreak of
Nightingale Acts Following News Reports
It was following reports in British newspapers or horrific conditions for wounded soldiers that Florence felt compelled to act. On October 21 1854, gathering up her staff 38 personally trained lady volunteers, and 15 Catholic nuns, she went to the theater of war. They were set up about 339 miles across the Black Sea away from Balaklava, the main British base in the region. When Nightingale and her party arrived at Scutari in the Barrack Hospital on Nov. 5 what they saw was ghastly. Dirty overcrowded wards, patients lay wallowing in their own filth, and roaches and rodents crawled in among the wounded. A shortage of supplies, and uncooperative staff made matters worse. When wounded soldiers began arriving from the Battle of Balaklava, the
hospital was overwhelmed. Nightingale called it a "Kingdom of Hell". Mass infections were frequent in this place where hygiene was being ignored. And there was no effective system for getting food to the patients. Nightingale established basic standards that included bathing, keeping the wounds clean, and dressings being changed regularly. Also supplies were purchased in order to keep the soldiers on a regular diet.
"The Lady With the Lamp"
Nightingale herself was a serious woman who spared herself nothing in
caring for the patients in her ward. At night, she made her rounds through the darkened hallways of the wards carrying a lamp. The wounded soldiers, seeing the obvious concern that Nightingale had
"Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room."
According to one source (Stephen Paget), Nightingale reduced the death rate from 42% to 2%, not only by the improvements she made in hygiene herself, or by calling for a Sanitary Commission to oversee such matters.
It was during her time at Scutari that Nightingale contracted the bacterial infection brucellosis, also called Crimean fever. This was an affliction that would stay with her for as long as she lived. But she continued to work tirelessly for the cause of better nursing care. A fund set up for her cause by the Duke of Cambridge collected some £45,000 which founded the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas' Hospital in 1860. In 1859, she wrote "Notes on Nursing" which became a cornerstone of nursing education throughout the world. Her methods were followed around the globe including in hospitals during the American Civil War. In her book Florence wrote: "Every day sanitary knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It is recognized as the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have" She continued to advocate through writings and interviews for better nursing and cleaner hospitals. Her long and influential life came to an end on
Sources =
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
https://www.biography.com/scientist/florence-nightingalein
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale