Florence Nightingale(1820-1910)
English nurse and hospital reformer. Florence Nightingale was named
after the place of her birth in Italy. Educated at home by their
wealthy, well-bred father, Nightingale and her older sister Parthenope
studied history, philosophy, mathematics, and classics; they also wrote
weekly compositions. Nursing was considered a profession for the
lower-classes and that time, however Florence decided that was what she
wanded to do. She trained as a nurse at Kaiserswerth (1851) and Paris
and in 1853 became superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in
London. In the Crimean War she volunteered for duty and took 38 nurses
to Scutari in 1854. She organized the barracks hospital after the
Battle of Inkerman (5 November) and by imposing strict discipline and
standards of sanitation reduced the hospital mortality rate
drastically. She returned to England in 1856 and a fund of L 50,000 was
subscribed to enable her to form an institution for the training of
nurses at St Thomas's and at King's College Hospital. She devoted many
years to the question of army sanitary reform, to the improvement of
nursing and to public health in India. Her main work, Notes on Nursing
(1859), went through many editions.