Florence Nightingale - Wonderful Woman No. 46

Florence Nightingale - 1820-1910
British Nurse, Teacher, Writer and Statistician

I cannot claim to have known the ins and outs of Florence Nightingale's career when I posted her picture in the album, I wanted to place her there as a representation of the nursing profession, of women who dedicate their lives to helping others. I was quite surprised when her inclusion resulted in some opposition:

Her knowledge & methods have long since been called into question and she she never really got her hands dirty...she was hundreds of miles from the battlefield.
Owain, A Wonderful Man

Having done some research following Owain's comment, it is apparent that there are some critics of Florence and how much of what I have always believed she did and how much she actually did is unclear.

What is clear about Florence, is that she was a very determined woman, who felt nursing was her calling and entered into the profession despite opposition from her parents, who felt ladies in the upper classes she not go out to work. She not only trained to be a nurse but became a teacher of junior nurses, passing on techniques and philosophies she had learned in other parts of Europe.

In 1854, the Crimean War erupted, British, French and Turkish troops in conflict with the Russians. A British newspaper printed a story reporting on how wounded British soldiers were receiving inadequate treatment and how many were dying as a result:

Are there no women willing to help the suffering soldiers in the hospitals of Scutari? Are no daughters of England ready for such a work of mercy?

Florence travelled to the Ottoman Empire with 38 female volunteers under her supervision, to provide medical treatment to wounded troops. Whether Florence herself "got her hands dirty" seems to be a matter of opinion but she was there and after the groups arrival, mortality levels decreased and it is recorded that sanitation in the hospitals was improved.

Florence founded the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas' Hospital in London and she herself spent much of her career tutoring nurses. Florence mentored Linda Richards, who is considered the U.S.A's first trained nurse, establishing formal nurses training in America. She wrote a number of books and papers on nursing, hospital standards and sanitation, hospital planning and military care for the wounded, I am led to believe that the basis of these teachings are still referenced for trainee nurses to this day. As well as writing, Florence was a gifted Mathematician and pioneered the use of statistical graphs in the nursing profession, she charted conditions and mortality in the Crimean War, used graphs to improve sanitation in British hospitals and in later life made a comprehensive statistical study of sanitation in Indian rural life.

While there are grey areas surrounding what Florence did and did not do, I feel she does deserve to be here for what she did do, for what she might have done and, mostly, for what she represents.

The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.
Florence Nightingale