Reference
- Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910)Florence Nightingale, an Englishwoman, developed the foundational philosophy of modern nursing and was a Victorian leader in sanitation reform. Her most famous position was as superintendent of female nursing in the military hospitals in Turkey based at Scutari during the Crimean War. The time in the Crimea provided Nightingale with the experience, political contact, and public fame to create significant and lasting social reform following the war.
Nightingale was born to William Edward and Frances Smith Nightingale on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy, and named for the city of her birth. Her father, through his Unitarian beliefs, supported schooling for women and provided Florence and her sister Parthenope with a broadly based curriculum. Florence proved to be an exceptional student, excelling particularly in languages, mathematics, and philosophy. As a young woman, she traveled widely in Europe, meeting the socially prominent. At 18, she was presented at court to Queen Victoria.
Nightingale was driven by a strong sense of spirituality and Christian service, believing that she had a duty to serve mankind. As a young woman, she displayed an early interest in nursing, caring for aging relatives and household staff. Despite family objections, she obtained minimal nursing experience through two visits in 1850 and 1851 to Kaiserswerth in Germany, a Protestant institution that trained governesses, nannies, and nurses. There she learned basic nursing skills, the value of patient observation, and fundamental hospital design.
Nightingale's passion for nursing led her to seek employment. In 1853, her father provided her with an annual allowance, permitting her some freedom. She was offered the superintendency of the Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London, partially through the efforts of Elizabeth Herbert, a member of the Ladies' Committee of the Institution and a family friend. The 14 months Nightingale spent in this position provided her with practical experience in nursing practice and administration...
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Streaming Media
- Reputations: Florence Nightingale - Iron MaidenFlorence Nightingale, described by one historian as 'a combination of Joan of Arc and Margaret Thatcher', is probably the most famous Victorian in the world along with Queen Victoria. The Lady with the Lamp, the founder of modern nursing, she brought comfort and solace to a war-torn army through her ground-breaking work during the Crimean War, but despite her efforts the men continued to die. Reputations unravels the mystery and reveals the real woman behind the legend. With contributions from leading experts and historians, a dramatic and emotional story is pieced together of a manipulative, neurotic and, above all, ruthlessly ambitious woman. A BBC Production.
Online Resources
- Florence NightingaleFlorence Nightingale was a trailblazing figure in nursing who greatly affected 19th- and 20th-century policies around proper medical care. She was known for her night rounds to aid the wounded, establishing her image as the 'Lady with the Lamp.'
- Florence Nightingale-National Women's History MuseumOften called “the Lady with the Lamp,” Florence Nightingale was a caring nurse and a leader. In addition to writing over 150 books, pamphlets and reports on health-related issues, she is also credited with creating one of the first versions of the pie chart. However, she is mostly known for making hospitals a cleaner and safer place to be.
- Florence Nightingale: Creator of Modern Nursing and Public Health PioneerIn starting this series of articles on distinguished women in nursing, medicine and the related healthcare professions, the choice of the first name is obvious. Florence Nightingale is, I suggest, the most famous female in the long history of medicine and is a name that is known and revered throughout the world. Most people – even those in ‘the trade’ – think of her as ‘the lady with the lamp’, the heroine who went out to the Crimean War and nursed the sick and wounded at Scutari. Important though this was, her main contribution was her continued work, long after the war, in nursing organisation and training, hospital planning, public and military health and her pioneering work in the efficient gathering of medical statistics.
- Florence Nightingale: The Mother of NursingOn May 12, it is the birth time of a great woman. We write this editorial for her honor. Florence Nightingale (Figure 1), the founder of modern nursing of professional nursing, was born in Florence, Italy, on 1820, in an English family; she was named of the city of her birth. Florence learned mathematics, language, philosophy and religion (all subjects that later influenced on her work) from her father (1).
- Origins of health services researchThe idea that individual and population-based outcomes, benefits, hazards, and costs associated with medical interventions, practitioners, and institutions should be objects of research is not new. Sir William Petty and John Graunt in the seventeenth century; Thomas Short and Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827) in the eighteenth century; Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis and Florence Nightingale in the nineteenth century; Ernest Codman and Paul Lembcke in the twentieth century; and many others over the years advanced what were widely regarded by the medical profession and hospital administrators as impertinent questions about the medical care enterprise (White 1991, 1993). What is relatively new, however, is the codification of these diverse concepts and methods under the rubric of health services research.
Perspectives
Nightingales
Florence Nightingale was for a time the most famous woman in Britain–if not the world. We know her today primarily as a saintly character, perhaps as a heroic reformer of Britain’s health-care system. The reality is more involved and far more fascinating. In an utterly beguiling narrative that reads like the best Victorian fiction, acclaimed author Gillian Gill tells the story of this richly complex woman and her extraordinary family. Born to an adoring wealthy, cultivated father and a mother whose conventional facade concealed a surprisingly unfettered intelligence, Florence was connected by kinship or friendship to the cream of Victorian England’s intellectual aristocracy. Though moving in a world of ease and privilege, the Nightingales came from solidly middle-class stock with deep traditions of hard work, natural curiosity, and moral clarity. So it should have come as no surprise to William Edward and Fanny Nightingale when their younger daughter, Florence, showed an early passion for helping others combined with a precocious bent for power. Far more problematic was Florence’s inexplicable refusal to marry the well-connected Richard Monckton Milnes. As Gill so brilliantly shows, this matrimonial refusal was at once an act of religious dedication and a cry for her freedom–as a woman and as a leader. Florence’s later insistence on traveling to the Crimea at the height of war to tend to wounded soldiers was all but incendiary–especially for her older sister, Parthenope, whose frustration at being in the shade of her more charismatic sibling often led to illness. Florence succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. But at the height of her celebrity, at the age of thirty-seven, she retired to her bedroom and remained there for most of the rest of her life, allowing visitors only by appointment. Combining biography, politics, social history, and consummate storytelling, Nightingales is a dazzling portrait of an amazing woman, her difficult but loving family, and the high Victorian era they so perfectly epitomized. Beautifully written, witty, and irresistible, Nightingales is truly a tour de force. From the Hardcover edition.
