Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was born on May 12,1820 in Florence, Italy.
She was a bright, tough, driven professional, a brilliant organizer
and statistician, and one of the most influential women in 19th-century
England. She never quite fit the mold of a Victorian lady. She
was well educated in literature, music, drawing and the domestic
arts. A woman of her social standing was expected to marry and
devote her life to her family, entertaining, and cultural pursuits.
However, she felt an early calling to serve, and refused to marry.
When she attempted to go to work as a nurse, her horrified family
repeatedly opposed her. In those days, hospitals were often dirty
and dark and nurses were untrained, sometimes drunken women. Finally,
at age 33 she was able to obtain some minimal training and begin
her career.
Nightingale recruited and equipped a group of nurses and went
off to Turkey in 1854 to help soldiers wounded in the Crimean War.
Surgeons there, who resented the interference of a woman, did
not
celebrate her arrival. Undaunted, she worked tirelessly to improve
conditions in the hospital. Her changes revolutionized British
military medical care, increasing standards for sanitation and
nutrition and dramatically lowering mortality rates. She also
developed a Model Hospital Statistical Form for hospitals to collect
and
generate consistent data and statistics. She became a Fellow
of the Royal Statistical Society in 1858 and an honorary member
of
the American Statistical Association in 1874.
In 1859 she helped
to establish the first Visiting Nurse Association and in 1860,
she established a school that became a model for modern
nurses training. She was considered an expert on the scientific
care of the sick and was asked by the United States for her advice
on caring for the wounded soldiers of the Civil War. Through
correspondence and reports, she continued her influence throughout
her last years.
She was the first woman to receive the British Order of Merit.
In 1907 the International Conference of Red Cross Societies listed
her as a pioneer of the Red Cross Movement.
Florence Nightingale is most remembered as a pioneer of nursing
and a reformer of hospital sanitation methods. For most of her
ninety years, she pushed for reform of the British military health-care
system and with that the profession of nursing started to gain
the respect it deserved. She made a significant impact in paving
the way for a more humane social order by promoting understanding,
tolerance and mutual respect among all people.
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