Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy in 1820. Her parents named her Florence after the city of her birth. She grew up in England. As she matured, she became distraught over the lack of opportunities for women. As a young woman, she would visit the poor and grew increasingly interested in caring for the sick. In 1844, she went to various English hospitals to investigate opportunities career opportunities for women. In the 1800's, nursing was considered one of the lowest jobs for women. It was believed that to be a nurse, one needed neither education nor skill. Being a nurse was lower than being a prostitute (Bloy, 2010).
Florence traveled to Paris, France where she met two sisters from St. Vincent du Paul, who introduced Florence to different techniques in nursing which was far more advanced that England. Florence decided to train as a nurse for four months in 1851. She then went back to England and inspected various hospitals. In 1853, she became the supertindent for the Hospital of Invalid Gentlewomen (Bloy, 2010).
March of 1854, the Crimean War began which created many opportunities for Florence to advance nursing. The English people were upset about the lack of care for the sick and wounded in Crimea. Florence traveled to Crimea in October of 1854 with thirty eight nurses. When the nurses arrived at Scruti, they were aghast at the conditions. No soap, towels, hospital clothes, water "vessels", sour milk and bread, and old meat were what the nurses encountered. The nurses also were shocked at the condition of the soldiers which were lying in their uniforms and dirty beyond recognition (Bloy, 2010).
When the nurse first arrived, many were very inexperienced, but as 1854 drew to a close, the nurses made improvements at Scruti. Funding was given to the Florence and her nurses which she used to create a laundry and kitchen. Florence was the only nurse allowed to take care of the soldiers after 8 PM. The orderlies took the other nurses' places at night. Florence would wander throughout the hospital with her lamp to check on the patients which thus coined her title "Lady of the Lamp". The nurses, as well as Florence, were overworked. Forty-six more nurses came to Scruti at the end of 1854 to help ease the hard working nurses (Bloy, 2010).
By 1855, the rise of cholera and typhus among the patients was increasing due to lack of any type of sanitation system. Many nurses and doctors died and there were up to 2000 patients being seen as the hospital at Scruti. The English War Office demanded improvements to the sanitation system and the death rate dropped from 42% to 2%. Florence, herself, was sick with the Crimean fever for 12 days. After she recovered, she continued to nurse the sick at Scruti. She created reading and recreation rooms for the soldiers as well as their families. She returned to England in 1856 (Bloy, 2010).
Florence was deeply impacted by what she saw in Crimea. A fund was created in 1855 to help train nurses. She went to visit Queen Victoria in 1856 to inform her of the horrible conditions she witnessed in Scruti. The school that was founded grew and Florence used her experiences from the Crimea to help with the training. Due to her poor health, she had to advise how to run the school rather than teach (Bloy, 2010).
Due to her health problems, Florence lived the rest of her life offering advice about training nurses instead of actually training them. In the late 1850's she wrote a book entitled Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army. The book influenced the creation of an English commission on the "sanitary conditions in the -army". Florence offered her advice to American nurses during the American Civil War. She helped create the East London Nursing Society in 1868 and the National Society for providing Trained Nurses to the Poor (Bloy, 2010).
The Indian Mutiny in the 1870's allowed for Florence to offer advice on how creating a sanitary department within the Indian Government. She took a great interest in India and was deeply concerned about the welfare of the Indian people. Florence penned several papers about famine, sanitation, and irrigation needs of the Indian people (Bloy, 2010).
Before she died in 1910, Florence received many honors including the Order of Merit, the Freedom of the city of London, German order of the Cross of Merit, and the badge of honor of the Norwegian Red Cross Society. The English Government offered to have Florence's burial at Westminster Abbey, but her family refused. She was instead buried near her family home (Bloy, 2010).
Bloy, M. (2010, June 10). The victorian web: florence nightingale. Retrieved from http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/florrie.html
