On this day in medical history: Celebrating Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing

On May 12, 1820, Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy family in Florence, Italy. Nightingale showed an early interest in ministering to the sick in a village close to her family’s estate. Because of this, she realized that nursing was her calling.

However, she was forbidden by her parents to pursue what she believed to be her divine purpose in life. As a woman of high social standing in the Victorian Era, she was expected to marry a wealthy man of her class, rather than take up employment considered by the upper echelon of society to be lowly menial labor.

In 1849, Nightingale refused a proposal of marriage from Richard Monckton Milnes, who had pursued her for years. Instead, she enrolled as a nursing student in 1850-1851 at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses, Kaiserswerth, Germany.

Upon graduating, Nightingale returned to London to a nursing job in a Harley Street hospital for ailing governesses, where she was promoted to superintendent for her impressive performance. She also volunteered at a hospital in Middlesex at the height of a cholera outbreak. Recognizing the unsanitary conditions of that time, Nightingale was inspired to improve hygiene in hospitals. Her efforts were said to have significantly lowered the death rate at the hospital.

Allied Britain and France went to war against the Russian Empire for control of Ottoman territory in the Crimean War in October 1853. British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea, and by 1854, the fighting was so fierce that military hospitals were treating 18,000 soldiers. No female nurses had been stationed in Crimea, and the hospitals were terribly understaffed and unsanitary.

Nightingale was asked by Britain’s Secretary of War Sidney Herbert in 1854 to organize and lead a corps of nurses to tend the sick and fallen soldiers in Crimea. She assembled a team of nearly three dozen nurses and left for Crimea.

The conditions they saw upon their arrival at Scutari, the British base hospital in Constantinople, were anything but ideal. A large cesspool beneath the hospital contaminated the water and the building, basic supplies such as bandages and soap were scarce, and water was rationed. Typhoid and cholera were killing more soldiers than war injuries.

Nightingale immediately worked to improve the conditions. In addition to scrubbing the inside of the hospital from floor to ceiling—with the help of the least infirm soldiers—she was reported to have spent every waking hour caring for the soldiers. She did her evening rounds carrying a lantern, which earned her the nickname of “The Lady with the Lamp.” Nightingale also set up a kitchen, a laundry, a classroom, and a library. Her efforts were said to have reduced the death rate by two-thirds.

Once the Crimean War was over, Nightingale returned to her childhood home in England, where she was received with a hero’s welcome. She was also presented with the “Nightingale Jewel,” an engraved brooch from Queen Victoria, and a prize of $250,000 from the British government for her work in Crimea.

With her prize money Nightingale funded the St. Thomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. Her report “Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army” detailed her experiences in the Crimean War and became the basis for the establishment of the Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857.

Unfortunately, during her time in Crimea, Nightingale contracted brucellosis, a highly contagious zoonosis also known as Crimean fever. She never fully recovered, and by the age of 38, was homebound and often bedridden. Not one to be deterred from her purpose, Nightingale continued to work from her bed.

She published her “Notes on Hospitals” in 1859. During the Civil War in the United States, she regularly consulted with the US military on the management of field hospitals. She also became an authority on public sanitation in India for the military and civilians, despite never visiting India.

King Edward gave Nightingale the Order of Merit in 1907. In the next year, she became the first woman to receive the Freedom of the City of London honor. King George sent her his congratulatory best wishes on her 90th birthday in May 1910.

She died on August 13, 1910, in her home in London, and was buried in the family plot at St. Margaret’s Church, East Wellow, in Hampshire, England.

Florence Nightingale is considered the founder of modern nursing. To commemorate her life, the Florence Nightingale Museum was built on the original site of the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. The museum contains more than 2,000 artifacts commemorating her career as a nurse.

National Nurses Week is celebrated this year from May 6-12, ending on Nightingale’s birthday in her honor. Throughout this week, remember to thank a nurse, whether it’s privately with gifts, flowers, or a special dinner, or publicly by participating in a seminar or event that recognizes the contribution nurses make to the health needs and well-being of everyone.

Sources:

Florence Nightingale. Biography.com. https://www.biography.com/people/florence-nightingale-9423539. Accessed May 1, 2018.

Florence Nightingale Museum, London. http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/?v=7516fd43adaa. Accessed May 1, 2018.

Selanders, L. “Florence Nightingale.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale. Accessed May 1, 2018.