Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend

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Cannadine, David. "Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale: Selected Letters." The New Republic. 203.7 (13 August 1990): 38–42.

When Nightingale returned from the war, she continued to improve the conditions of hospitals. She presented her experiences and her data to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1856. This data was the reason they formed a Royal Commission to improve the health of the British Army. Nightingale was so skilled with data and numbers that in 1858 she was also elected as the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society. In 1859, Nightingale continued to spread her healthier medical practices by helping to set up the Army Medical College in Chatham. That same year, she published a book called Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not. Her book gives advice on good patient care and safe hospital environments. As a result of her efforts during the war, a fund was set up for Nightingale to continue teaching nurses in England. In 1860, the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas’ Hospital was officially opened. In her later years, Nightingale was often bedridden from illness. However, she continued to advocate for safe nursing practices until her death. The Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas' Hospital in London reopened in May2010 in time for the centenary of Nightingale's death. [48] Another museum devoted to her is at her sister's family home, Claydon House, now a property of the National Trust. [118] [119] Florence Nightingale has frequently been described as “the lady with the lamp” and this quote relates to an article published about her in The Times newspaper 8th February 1855, which reads: Friendly, Michael (2007). "A.-M. Guerry's Moral Statistics of France: Challenges for Multivariable Spatial Analysis". Statistical Science. Institute of Mathematical Statistics. 22 (3). arXiv: 0801.4263. doi: 10.1214/07-STS241. S2CID 13536171. Florence Nightingale exhibited a gift for mathematics from an early age and excelled in the subject under the tutelage of her father. [d] Later, Nightingale became a pioneer in the visual presentation of information and statistical graphics. [74] She used methods such as the pie chart, which had first been developed by William Playfair in 1801. [75] While taken for granted now, it was at the time a relatively novel method of presenting data. [76]Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (November 1857). "Santa Filomena". The Atlantic Monthly. pp.22–23. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008 . Retrieved 13 March 2010. After Nightingale sent a plea to The Times for a government solution to the poor condition of the facilities, the British Government commissioned Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design a prefabricated hospital that could be built in England and shipped to the Dardanelles. The result was Renkioi Hospital, a civilian facility that, under the management of Edmund Alexander Parkes, had a death rate less than one tenth of that of Scutari. [26]

Nightingale’s evidence-based approach was one of the first steps towards professionalising nursing. In her time, nursing was thought of as a domestic task done by women or religious figures. Her 1859 book Notes on Nursing was meant mostly for a domestic audience but, for the first time, defined what nursing was. Nightingale, Florence (1987). Letters from Egypt: A Journey on the Nile 1849–1850. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 1-55584-204-6. In 2001 and 2008 the BBC released documentaries that were critical of Nightingale's performance in the Crimean War, as were some follow-up articles published in The Guardian and the Sunday Times. Nightingale scholar Lynn McDonald has dismissed these criticisms as "often preposterous", arguing they are not supported by the primary sources. [12] Florence in 1854 with 38 nurses went to a military camp of British soldiers, located on the outskirts of Constantinople (Istanbul) ( 2). Florence noticed that health status in these camps was devastating. Injured soldiers were left on the floor and the few doctors desperately were trying to manage patients with basic facilities, in dirty environment ( 4). Florence used her mathematical knowledge, and recorded the mortality rate in the hospital. Statistics showed that in every thousand injured soldiers, the six hundred were dying because of communicable and infectious diseases ( 2). The arrival of two waves of Irish nuns, the Sisters of Mercy, to assist with nursing duties at Scutari met with different responses from Nightingale. Mary Clare Moore headed the first wave and placed herself and her Sisters under the authority of Nightingale. The two were to remain friends for the rest of their lives. [38] The second wave, headed by Mary Francis Bridgeman met with a cooler reception as Bridgeman refused to give up her authority over her Sisters to Nightingale while at the same time not trusting Nightingale, whom she regarded as ambitious. [39] [40] The Lady with the Lamp The Lady with the Lamp. Popular lithograph reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891.

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James Southern, "A Lady 'in Proper Proportions'? Feminism, Lytton Strachey, and Florence Nightingale's Reputation, 1918–39". Twentieth Century British History 28.1 (March 2017): 1–28. doi: 10.1093/tcbh/hww047. PMID 28922795. Two National Archives blogs showcasing yet more original sources on the life of Florence Nightingale: Vicinus, Martha (1985). Independent Women, Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920. London: The University of Chicago Press. p.109. Even though it was not a respected profession at the time, Nightingale told her parents that she wanted to become a nurse. Her parents did not approve of her decision and wanted her to get married and raise a family. Nightingale still wanted to be a nurse and refused marriage. Eventually, her father allowed her to go to Germany for three months to study at Pastor Theodore Fliedner’s hospital and school for Lutheran Deaconesses. After finishing her program in Germany, Nightingale went to Paris for extra training with the Sisters of Mercy. By the time she was 33, Nightingale was already making a name for herself in the nursing community. She returned to England in 1853 and became the superintendent and manager of a hospital for “gentlewomen” in London.

Eventually, her father gave his permission for her to go to Germany to train in 1844 in a hospital in Kaiserwerth, Germany. When she returned she became the superintendent of a hospital for gentlewomen in Harley Street, London. Indeed, Nightingale is described as "a true pioneer in the graphical representation of statistics" and is especially well known for her usage of a polar area diagram, [76] :107 or occasionally the Nightingale rose diagram, equivalent to a modern circular histogram, to illustrate seasonal sources of patient mortality in the military field hospital she managed. While frequently credited as the creator of the polar area diagram, it is known to have been used by André-Michel Guerry in 1829 [77] and Léon Louis Lalanne by 1830. [78] Nightingale called a compilation of such diagrams a "coxcomb", but later that term would frequently be used for the individual diagrams. [79] She made extensive use of coxcombs to present reports on the nature and magnitude of the conditions of medical care in the Crimean War to Members of Parliament and civil servants who would have been unlikely to read or understand traditional statistical reports. In 1859, Nightingale was elected the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society. [80] In 1874 she became an honorary member of the American Statistical Association. [81] " Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the East" by Florence NightingaleNightingale decided to use the money to further her cause. In 1860, she funded the establishment of St. Thomas’ Hospital, and within it, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. Nightingale became a figure of public admiration. Poems, songs and plays were written and dedicated in the heroine’s honor. Young women aspired to be like her. Eager to follow her example, even women from the wealthy upper classes started enrolling at the training school. Thanks to Nightingale, nursing was no longer frowned upon by the upper classes; it had, in fact, come to be viewed as an honorable vocation. In 1838, her father took the family on a tour in Europe where she was introduced to the English-born Parisian hostess Mary Clarke, with whom Florence bonded. She recorded that "Clarkey" was a stimulating hostess who did not care for her appearance, and while her ideas did not always agree with those of her guests, "she was incapable of boring anyone." Her behaviour was said to be exasperating and eccentric and she had little respect for upper-class British women, whom she regarded generally as inconsequential. She said that if given the choice between being a woman or a galley slave, then she would choose the freedom of the galleys. She generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals. Clarke made an exception, however, in the case of the Nightingale family and Florence in particular. She and Florence were to remain close friends for 40years despite their 27-year age difference. Clarke demonstrated that women could be equal to men, an idea that Florence had not learnt from her mother. [14]