![]() In 1857, Florence returned home a heroine. Her group of nurses transformed the hospital into a healthy environment within six months, and as a result, the death rate of patients fell from 40 to 2 percent (5). Nightingale was known for providing the kind of personal care, like writing letters home for soldiers, that comforted them and improved their psychological health. Under Florence’s leadership, the nurses brought cleanliness, sanitation, nutritious food and comfort to the patients. The doctors originally did not welcome the incoming female nurses, but as the number of patients escalated, their help was needed in the overcrowded, undersupplied, and unsanitary hospital (4). On November 4, 1854, Nightingale and 38 nurses arrived in Scutari, the location of the British camp outside Constantinople. Responding to unpopular newspaper reports of the horrendous situation in the English war camp hospitals, Secretary of War Sidney Herbert, a personal friend of Nightingale, consented to let her organize and manage a group of female nurses to go to Turkey. Nursing during the Crimean Warīust of Florence Nightingale, presented to her by the soldiers after the Crimean WarFlorence Nightingale is probably most famous for her work during the Crimean War (1854-1856). James on September 20, 1853, about patient admittance, payment, demographics and lengths of stay at London’s Establishment of Gentlewomen during Illness). ( Click here to view a letter written by Florence Nightingale to a Mrs. After her return to England, Florence took a position as superintendent for London’s Establishment of Gentlewomen during Illness in 1853. In 1853 Nightingale went for additional training in Paris with the Sisters of Mercy (3). Fliedner’s school was one of the earliest institutions for the proper training of nurses outside of the Catholic religious orders (2). So it is not difficult to see why Florence Nightingale’s family, wealthy and respectable as they were, discouraged her from selecting this “unsuitable” profession. But Florence went against her parent’s wishes, refused a prospective marriage and in 1851 trained as a nurse in Kaiserswerth, Germany at Pastor Theodore Fliedner’s hospital and school for Lutheran deaconesses. They were often regarded merely as places to die. The hospitals they served held equally low reputations as unclean, disorderly, and infection breeding. Nurses in those days were typically poor, unskilled and often associated with immoral behavior (1). Pastor Theodore Fliedner, founder of the Lutheran deaconesses training center for nurses in Kaiserwerth, GermanyThe period between the later half of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th has been described by medical historian Fielding Garrison as the “dark age” of nursing. However, Florence had other ideas, because as a teenager in 1837 she received a "divine calling” to do God’s work, which sparked her advocacy of social and health care causes and eventually led her to establish nursing as a distinct profession. ![]() With regard to the marriage and social life of their daughters, the Nightingales held high expectations. The two girls were educated by their father, and Florence, in particular, excelled academically. At home in England, the Nightingales divided their time between two houses, Lea Hurst in Derbyshire for the summer and Embley in Hampshire for the winter. Both Florence and her sister were named after the Italian cities in which they were born – her sister Parthenope was born in Naples and given the Greek name for its ancient city. Lea Hurst, the summer home of the Nightingale familyFlorence Nightingale was born in 1820 to wealthy English parents traveling in Florence, Italy. ![]()
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