10 questions · Society & Everyday
Florence Nightingale is born in 1820 into a wealthy British family: named after the Italian city of Florence, where she comes into the world. A life of fine society lies open to her, but at 16 she becomes convinced that God has called her to a purpose. That purpose turns out to be something unthinkable for a lady of her class at the time: nursing. Against the fierce opposition of her family she pushes through her training, including a stay at the German Deaconess Institute in Kaiserswerth. Her hour comes in 1854, when reports of the appalling conditions in British military hospitals during the Crimean War reach London. Nightingale travels with 38 nurses to Scutari near Constantinople and finds a horror of filth, rats and overcrowding, in which more soldiers die of typhus, cholera and dysentery than of their wounds. She orders scrubbing, ventilation and washing, and sets up proper catering. At night she walks the rows of the wounded carrying an oil lamp: an image that spreads through the press and earns her the nickname "the Lady with the Lamp". Back in England she proves with numbers what observation alone cannot: in meticulous statistics she shows that most of the war's dead died of preventable diseases, not of combat. Her famous "rose diagram" makes this visible at a glance; she is regarded as a pioneer of visual statistics and becomes the first woman elected to the Royal Statistical Society. In 1860 she founds the first secular nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, turning nursing into a respected, teachable profession. Although she spends much of her later life confined to bed, she writes tirelessly on hygiene and health reform. To this day, International Nurses Day on her birthday, 12 May, commemorates her work.
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modern nursing
She turned a despised menial task into a respected, teachable profession.
💡 Did you know? Nightingale transformed nursing from a despised occupation into a respected, trained profession.
Crimean War
She ran the nursing at the overcrowded military hospital of Scutari near Constantinople.
💡 Did you know? In the Crimean War Nightingale found catastrophic conditions in the military hospitals: more soldiers died of disease than of wounds.
the Lady with the Lamp
At night she walked the wards carrying an oil lamp: an image the press made famous.
💡 Did you know? Because she walked the wards at night with a lamp, the soldiers called her „the Lady with the Lamp.“
hygiene
Through clean beds, fresh air and hand hygiene, Nightingale dramatically lowered the death rate in her hospital.
💡 Did you know? At first, more soldiers in the hospitals died of diseases like typhus and cholera than of their wounds.
statistics
Her "rose diagram" showed at a glance that most deaths were from preventable diseases.
💡 Did you know? She is regarded as a pioneer of visual data presentation.
Royal Statistical Society
A late recognition of her pioneering statistical work.
💡 Did you know? Nightingale was a gifted statistician: her famous pie charts proved to governments the power of hygiene.
first nursing school
For the first time nurse training became systematic and independent of religious orders.
💡 Did you know? Her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital became the model for training nurses worldwide.
from the city of Florence
Nightingale was named after the Italian city of Florence, where she was born in 1820.
💡 Did you know? Her older sister was also named after her birthplace: Parthenope, from the Greek name for Naples.
Florence Nightingale's birthday
The day honours the work of nurses around the world.
💡 Did you know? In Nightingale's honour her birthday, 12 May, is marked worldwide as International Nurses Day.
Foto: H. Lenthall, London · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (1820 to 1910) was a British nurse and statistician regarded as the founder of modern nursing.
💡 Did you know? When Nightingale chose her calling, nursing was seen as unseemly work for a woman of her class: she prevailed against her family's opposition.
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