The Life and Work of Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) is most celebrated for her nursing work carried out during the Crimean War and raising the profile of the nursing profession for women.
Born 12th May 1820, Florence Nightingale was named after the Italian city in which she was born while her parents were undertaking a grand tour of Europe. By her late teens Nightingale reportedly felt a distinct calling to work for God and she began developing her interest in care and nursing. At the time her parents thought nursing the sick and wounded was inappropriate for a woman of her standing in society and refused their consent for her to formally train as a nurse.
Florence's parents eventually relented and during 1851 she travelled to Kaiserwerth, Germany, to undergo 12 weeks nurses training before eventually taking a supervisory position in a womens hospital in London's Harley Street. In 1854 the Crimean War was underway and newspaper reports of poor medical care for British soldiers hit the headlines. The war minister, Sidney Herbert, knew Florence Nightingale and the work she was doing. Herbert invited her to lead a nursing team within military hospitals in Turkey. By late 1854 she, along with her nurses, arrived in Scutari where he impact immediately improved sanitary and medical conditions leading to a swift reduction in mortality among the injured soldiers.
Following her return to Britain in 1856 she established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas' Hospital in London during 1860. Later that year Florence Nightingale's ideas were published with the title "Notes on Nursing". Eventually nurses she had trained were being employed in hospitals all over Britain and Nightingales ideas and practices were put in to widescale use.
Florence Nightingale's ideas were hugely influential, raising awareness of sanitation, military health and hospital planning among her peers and led to practices which are still considered a reference today by the medical professions.
Florence Nightingale, now dubbed the "Lady with the Lamp", died 13th August 1910.
30.03.2011. 01:48
