Florence Nightingale

1820-1910

Florence Nightingale

1820-1910

-Born in Florence, Italy, on 12th May, 1820

-Daughter of a wealthy landowner, William Nightingale, who later took responsibility for her education, teaching her statistics, languages, history, mathematics, etc.

At seventeen she experienced what she felt as a divine called.

Her mother wanted her to get marry to a good man, but she refused several proposals and at the age of 25 she told her parents that she wanted to be a nurse.

In 1851, her father gave her permission to train as a nurse.

March 1854 - Crimean War

France, England and Turkey declared war to Russia.

Soon after the British soldiers arrived in Turkey they started to die from cholera and malaria.

When the government heard about this they had to change their minds about women nursing men.

Nightingale offered her services and she was eventually allowd to form a group of 38 women to go nursing in Scutari, Turkey.

When they arrived to Scutari, they saw that soldiers were kept in filthy rooms, with no blankets nor descent food and still wearing their dirty uniforms.

No wonder they were all dying not because of the wounds but all the diseases they were contracting there.

Nightingale received very little help from the military. She used her contacts in The Times to report the way soliers were treated by the British army.

After the big publicity, Nightingale was asked to organize the hospital. The death-rate was reduced.

In 1856 Florence had a long interview with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, this conversation eventually resulted in the formation of the Army Medical College.

To spread her opinions she wrote two books: Notes on Hospital and Notes on Nursing. She raised 59.000 pounds and used this to found the Nightingale School & Home for Nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital.

In 1895 she went blind. Soon afterwards she had to receive full-time nursing.

She dies in London, on August 13, 1910.

Contributions to Statistics

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