On this Day in History: 204 years ago, in Florence, Italy, ..
Added 2024-05-12 18:00:07 +0000 UTCOn this Day in History:
204 years ago, in Florence, Italy, Florence Nightingale was born. She was raised in England by wealthy parents but rejected her social heritage, being forbidden to pursue nursing and being expected to marry a suitable man. In the next forty years she founded a hospital that contained a school for nurses, but before that she stood out in her field by rising quickly and controlling the devastation of a cholera outbreak before being called to action during the Crimean War, where she really showed her skill.
Nurses had a bad reputation at this point, but the number of injured British soldiers and the conditions that they were being kept in was leading to more deaths than by battle injuries alone, so Florence was called to assemble a team and sail out. She worked tirelessly to clean the base hospital, but also implemented various programs to improve all aspects of patient life: laundry units to ensure clean linens, kitchens that could accommodate dietary restrictions, and created spaces for intellectual stimulation through reading and learning. This work, including checking on patients overnight, earned her the nicknames “the Lady with the Lamp” and “the Angel of Crimea.”
She went on to work in government and military health operations, analyzing statistics of army mortality and implementing standards to drastically reduce deaths post-battle. This work lead to her being the first woman accepted into the Royal Statistical Society, but more importantly these changes, mathematical and sanitary, completely changed the face of nursing for the better, leading to the quality care we receive in any medical setting today.
