Florence

Nightingale
By Wendy Willingham, RN

Created as part of an assignment as a student in the MSN program at the

University of North Alabama
Florence Nightingale was born in
Florence, Italy in 1820 to a wealthy
landowner.
As a child, Florence was very close
to her father. Because he had no
sons, he became very close to her
and took responsibility for her
education. She was taught by her
father and learned Greek, Latin,
Italian, German, mathematics, and
philosophy.
At the age of 17, Florence felt a
calling to become a nurse. Her
parents were very opposed to this
idea because nursing at that time
was associated with working class
women.

At the age of 31, after much

insistence, Florence’s father gave
her permission to train as a nurse
and she left for Kaiserwerth,
Germany to begin her training.
In 1853 she became superintendent
of the Institution for Sick
Gentlewomen in Distressed
Circumstances in London. This
opportunity allowed her to become
independent from her family
and also to try out new
ideas in organizing and
managing an institution.
 In 1851, the Crimean War began
when Russia invaded Turkey. Britain
and France came to Turkey’s aid.
Soon after British soldiers arrived in
Turkey, they began to contract
cholera and malaria. Within two
weeks, over 8,000 soldiers suffered
from these two diseases.
Nightingale volunteered her nursing
services and organized a group of 38
nurses to go to Turkey.
Nightingale found the conditions at
the barrack hospitals appalling.
Soldiers were found in rooms with
no blankets and no decent food.
Some were still dressed in their
uniforms that were bloody and dirty.
 Military officers denied Nightingale’s
attempts to reorganize the barrack
hospitals until she used a contact at The
Times newspaper to report how unfairly
the British military was treating its
soldiers. She was eventually granted
permission to reorganize the hospital.
Nightingale and the other nurses applied the
science of the 19thcentury to improve the
conditions at the hospital. She believed
cleanliness and fresh air were the first lines
of defense against infection. Because of
their efforts, death rates among the soldiers
dropped dramatically.
Nightingale became
known as the “lady
with the lamp” as she
worked tirelessly to
help the wounded
soldiers.

One wounded soldier

said of her “She would
speak to one and nod
and smile to as many
more, but she could
not do it to all you
know. We lay there in
our hundreds, but we
Nightingale returned from the war a
heroine. However, much of her work
to advance the nursing profession
occurred within the last 40 years of
her life. She wrote the first nursing
“textbook” entitled Notes on Nursing
in 1859 and developed the first
nursing school curriculum for St.
Thomas’s Hospital in London.
Nightingale’s ambitious attitude helped her
to fight hard to obtain a leadership position
in a world dominated by men. Her efforts
during the war helped prove the importance
of well-trained nurses on patient outcomes
and her work after the war helped mold and
shape the future
of the nursing profession.
How does nursing today differ from nursing in
Nightingale’s time?

•Nursing is a respectable career and one can feel

proud to be a nurse. It is no longer a profession that
is considered “undesirable” or “for women of
questionable morals” as it was in Nightingale’s era.
•Nurses must be well-trained on many different areas
of science, math, and medicine.
•Nursing is now a field that is wide
open for both women and men.
 References

Notable Biographies. (2009). Florence Nightingale. Retrieved June

25, 2009, from http://
www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Nightingale-Florence.html

Spartacus Educational. (2009). Florence Nightingale. Retrieved June

25, 2009, from http://
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REnightingale.htm

Stanley, D. (2007). Lights in the shadows: Florence Nightingale and

others who made their mark. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the
Australian Nursing Profession, 24(1), 45-51.