Died: 13 August 1910
Occupation: Medical Nurse
Florence Nightingale was born in Belloguardo, on May 12, 1820. Her father, William Nightingale, mainly educated her. In February 1837, she felt that she should deeply engage herself herself to helping others. Her family disagreed to this. 7 years later, she told her family that she was going to become a nurse.
Florence was in a 9-year courtship with Richard Milnes, but then rejected him, thinking that marriage would make her nursing career difficult.
In 1947 she became a lifelong friend with Sidney Herbert, the Secretary at War during the Crimean War, and was his key adviser to him in politics.Nightingale traveled with the Bracebridges to places as far as Egypt and Greece. As she sailed on the Nile in 1850, she wrote:
"I don't think I ever saw anything which affected me more than this."In August 1953 Florence became superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London, which she kept for over a year. Her father gave her a income of £ 500 which allowed her to be comfortable and pursue her dream.
In 1854, she and 38 women and some Catholic nuns were to the Ottoman Empire, where the British camp was. When she got there, she saw the bad care for the soldiers, and sought to make a difference.
The Dictionary of National Biography said that Florence reduced teh death tole from 42% to 2%. But the death rates began to rise in the cleanest of all hospitals around. In her first winter at Scutari over 4000 soldiers died. After 6 months of being in Scutari, the British Government sent the Sanitary Commission. After what the commission did, the death tole was reduced, by much. But Florence do not take the credit for this.
Florence got the nickname "The Lady with the Lamp" in the Crimean war. The Times published this:
She is a 'ministering angel' without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellows face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down, upon those miles of prostrate sick, she my be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand making her solitary rounds.End of Part One.
God Bless,
Laura
