Inspiring Christian Lives

Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910

After an inspirational meeting with Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the USA, Florence Nightingale had at last discovered her vocation. This was in spite of the pressures from her family (her mother in particular) to marry a well connected gentleman.

Now thirty-one, Florence went to Kaiserwerth, Germany where she studied to become a nurse at the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses. Two years later she was appointed resident lady superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in Harley Street, London.

In response to a public outcry in 1853 about the death of British soldiers in the Crimean War as a result of a cholera epidemic, Nightingale offered her services. On arrival, she found the conditions in the army hospital in Scutari appalling. The men were kept in rooms without blankets or decent food. Unwashed, they were still wearing their army uniforms that were "stiff with dirt and gore". In these conditions, it was not surprising that in army hospitals, war wounds only accounted for one death in six. Diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery were the main reasons why the death-rate was so high amongst wounded soldiers.

There was stiff resistance to her reforming zeal from military officers and doctors. Military officers and doctors objected to Nightingale's views on reforming military hospitals. They interpreted her comments as an attack on their professionalism and she was made to feel unwelcome. Nightingale received very little help from the military until she used her contacts to launch a campaign for improvement. Nightingale was assisted in this by Mary Seacole, but whereas Florence Nightingale and her nurses were based in a hospital several miles from the front, Mary Seacole treated her patients on the battlefield. On several occasions she was found treating wounded soldiers from both sides while the battle was still going on.

On her return to England in 1856, Nightingale was hailed as a heroine. She campaigned for improved nursing training and facilities and for the opening up of careers to women.

Based on an article on www.schoolhistory.co.uk