biography about florence nightingale

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Florence Nightingale

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 24, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), known as “The Lady With the Lamp,” was a British nurse, social reformer and statistician best known as the founder of modern nursing. Her experiences as a nurse during the Crimean War were foundational in her views about sanitation. She established St. Thomas’s Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses in 1860. Her efforts to reform healthcare greatly influenced the quality of care in the 19 and 20 centuries.

Florence Nightingale: Early Life

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy to Frances Nightingale and William Shore Nightingale. She was the younger of two children. Nightingale’s affluent British family belonged to elite social circles. Her mother, Frances, hailed from a family of merchants and took pride in socializing with people of prominent social standing. Despite her mother’s interest in social climbing, Florence herself was reportedly awkward in social situations. She preferred to avoid being the center of attention whenever possible. Strong-willed, Florence often butted heads with her mother, whom she viewed as overly controlling. Still, like many daughters, she was eager to please her mother. “I think I am got something more good-natured and complying,” Florence wrote in her own defense, concerning the mother-daughter relationship.

Florence’s father was William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy landowner who had inherited two estates—one at Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, and the other in Hampshire, Embley Park—when Florence was five years old. Florence was raised on the family estate at Lea Hurst, where her father provided her with a classical education, including studies in German, French and Italian.

From a very young age, Florence Nightingale was active in philanthropy, ministering to the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate. By the time she was 16 years old, it was clear to her that nursing was her calling. She believed it to be her divine purpose.

When Nightingale approached her parents and told them about her ambitions to become a nurse, they were not pleased. In fact, her parents forbade her to pursue nursing. During the Victorian Era , a young lady of Nightingale’s social stature was expected to marry a man of means—not take up a job that was viewed as lowly menial labor by the upper social classes. 

When Nightingale was 17 years old, she refused a marriage proposal from a “suitable” gentleman, Richard Monckton Milnes. Nightingale explained her reason for turning him down, saying that while he stimulated her intellectually and romantically, her “moral…active nature…requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in this life.” Determined to pursue her true calling despite her parents’ objections, in 1844, Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany.

Florence Nightingale and Nursing

In the early 1850s, Nightingale returned to London, where she took a nursing job in a Middlesex hospital for ailing governesses. Her performance there so impressed her employer that Nightingale was promoted to the superintendent within just a year of being hired. The position proved challenging as Nightingale grappled with a cholera outbreak and unsanitary conditions conducive to the rapid spread of the disease. Nightingale made it her mission to improve hygiene practices, significantly lowering the death rate at the hospital in the process. The hard work took a toll on her health. She had just barely recovered when the biggest challenge of her nursing career presented itself. 

Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War

In October of 1853, the Crimean War broke out. The British Empire was at war against the Russian Empire for control of the Ottoman Empire . Thousands of British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea, where supplies quickly dwindled. By 1854, no fewer than 18,000 soldiers had been admitted into military hospitals.

At the time, there were no female nurses stationed at hospitals in Crimea. The poor reputation of past female nurses had led the war office to avoid hiring more. But, after the Battle of Alma, England was in an uproar about the neglect of their ill and injured soldiers, who not only lacked sufficient medical attention due to hospitals being horribly understaffed but also languished in appallingly unsanitary and inhumane conditions.

In late 1854, Nightingale received a letter from Secretary of War Sidney Herbert, asking her to organize a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. Nightingale rose to her calling. She quickly assembled a team of 34 nurses from a variety of religious orders and sailed with them to the Crimea just a few days later.

Although they had been warned of the horrid conditions there, nothing could have prepared Nightingale and her nurses for what they saw when they arrived at Scutari, the British base hospital in Constantinople . The hospital sat on top of a large cesspool, which contaminated the water and the hospital building itself. Patients lay on in their own excrement on stretchers strewn throughout the hallways. Rodents and bugs scurried past them. The most basic supplies, such as bandages and soap, grew increasingly scarce as the number of ill and wounded steadily increased. Even water needed to be rationed. More soldiers were dying from infectious diseases like typhoid and cholera than from injuries incurred in battle.

The no-nonsense Nightingale quickly set to work. She procured hundreds of scrub brushes and asked the least infirm patients to scrub the inside of the hospital from floor to ceiling. Nightingale herself spent every waking minute caring for the soldiers. In the evenings she moved through the dark hallways carrying a lamp while making her rounds, ministering to patient after patient. The soldiers, who were both moved and comforted by her endless supply of compassion, took to calling her “the Lady with the Lamp.” Others simply called her “the Angel of Crimea.” Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds.

In addition to vastly improving the sanitary conditions of the hospital , Nightingale created a number of patient services that contributed to improving the quality of their hospital stay. She instituted the creation of an “invalid’s kitchen” where appealing food for patients with special dietary requirements was cooked. She established a laundry so that patients would have clean linens. She also instituted a classroom and a library for patients’ intellectual stimulation and entertainment. Based on her observations in Crimea, Nightingale wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army , an 830-page report analyzing her experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals operating under poor conditions. The book would spark a total restructuring of the War Office’s administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857.

Nightingale remained at Scutari for a year and a half. She left in the summer of 1856, once the Crimean conflict was resolved, and returned to her childhood home at Lea Hurst. To her surprise, she was met with a hero’s welcome, which the humble nurse did her best to avoid. The Queen rewarded Nightingale’s work by presenting her with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the “Nightingale Jewel” and by granting her a prize of $250,000 from the British government.

Florence Nightingale, Statistician

With the support of Queen Victoria , Nightingale helped create a Royal Commission into the health of the army. It employed leading statisticians of the day, William Farr and John Sutherland, to analyze army mortality data, and what they found was horrifying: 16,000 of the 18,000 deaths were from preventable diseases—not battle. But it was Nightingale’s ability to translate this data into a new visual format that really caused a sensation. Her polar area diagram, now known as a “Nightingale Rose Diagram,” showed how the Sanitary Commission’s work decreased the death rate and made the complicated data accessible to all, inspiring new standards for sanitation in the army and beyond. She became the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society and was named an honorary member of the American Statistical Association.

Florence Nightingale’s Impact on Nursing

Nightingale 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.

While at Scutari, Nightingale had contracted “Crimean fever” and would never fully recover. By the time she was 38 years old, she was homebound and bedridden and would be so for the remainder of her life. Fiercely determined and dedicated as ever to improving health care and alleviating patients’ suffering, Nightingale continued her work from her bed.

Residing in Mayfair, she remained an authority and advocate of health care reform, interviewing politicians and welcoming distinguished visitors from her bed. In 1859, she published Notes on Hospitals , which focused on how to properly run civilian hospitals.

Throughout the U.S. Civil War , she was frequently consulted about how to best manage field hospitals. Nightingale also served as an authority on public sanitation issues in India for both the military and civilians, although she had never been to India herself.

In 1908, at the age of 88, she was conferred the merit of honor by King Edward. In May of 1910, she received a congratulatory message from King George on her 90th birthday.

Florence Nightingale: Death and Legacy

In August 1910, Florence Nightingale fell ill but seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. A week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12, 1910, she developed an array of troubling symptoms. She died unexpectedly at 2 p.m. the following day, Saturday, August 13, 1910, at her home in London.

Characteristically, she had expressed the desire that her funeral be a quiet and modest affair, despite the public’s desire to honor Nightingale—who tirelessly devoted her life to preventing disease and ensuring safe and compassionate treatment for the poor and the suffering. Respecting her last wishes, her relatives turned down a national funeral. The “Lady with the Lamp” was laid to rest in Hampshire, England.

The Florence Nightingale Museum, which sits at the site of the original Nightingale Training School for Nurses, houses more than 2,000 artifacts commemorating the life and career of the “Angel of the Crimea.” To this day, Florence Nightingale is broadly acknowledged and revered as the pioneer of modern nursing.

Florence Nightingale: Saving Lives With Statistics. BBC. Florence Nightingale. The National Archives, UK.

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Florence Nightingale

Often called “the Lady with the Lamp,” Florence Nightingale was a caring nurse and a leader. In addition to writing over 150 books, pamphlets and reports on health-related issues, she is also credited with creating one of the first versions of the pie chart. However, she is mostly known for making hospitals a cleaner and safer place to be.

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy. Although her parents were from England, she was born in Italy while they were traveling. Both Florence and her older sister Parthenope were named after the Italian cities where they were born. When they returned to England in 1821, the Nightingale family lived in two homes. They had a summer home in Derbyshire called Lea Hurst , and a winter home in Hampshire called Embley. Growing up in a wealthy family, Florence Nightingale was homeschooled by her father and expected to get married at a young age. However, when she was a teenager, Nightingale believed she received a “calling” from God to help the poor and the sick.

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.

When the Crimean War began in 1854, the British were unprepared to deal with the number of sick and injured soldiers. The lack of medical supplies, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions caused many people to complain. Newspapers began to report about the terrible state of medical care. The Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert asked Nightingale to manage a group of nurses that would go treat the wounded soldiers. She agreed, and on November 4, 1854, Nightingale and 38 nurses arrived at the British camp outside of Constantinople. When they got there, the doctors were unwelcoming because they did not want to work with female nurses. However, as the number of patients increased, the doctors needed their help. The nurses brought supplies, nutritious food, cleanliness, and sanitation to the military hospital. They also provided individual care and support. Nightingale was known for carrying a lamp and checking on the soldiers at night, so they gave her the nickname “the Lady with the Lamp.” Within six months, Nightingale and her team transformed the hospital. The death rate went down from 40 percent to 2 percent because of their work.

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.

Although Florence Nightingale died on August 13th, 1910 at the age of 90, her legacy continues. Two years after her death, the International Committee of the Red Cross created the Florence Nightingale Medal, that is given to excellent nurses every two years. Also, International Nurses Day has been celebrated on her birthday since 1965. In May of 2010, the Florence Nightingale Museum at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London reopened to honor the hundredth anniversary of Nightingale’s death.

Fee, Elizabeth, and Mary E Garofalo. “Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War.” American journal of public health vol. 100, no. 9 (2010): 1591. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.188607

Reynolds-Finley Historical Library. “The Life of Florence Nightingale.” The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Accessed May 1, 2018. https://library.uab.edu/locations/reynolds/collections/florence-nightingale/life

The Florence Nightingale Museum. “Florence Nightingale Biography.” Accessed May 3, 2018. https://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/resources/biography/?v=7516fd43adaa.

The National Archives. “Florence Nightingale.” September 05, 2018. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/florence-nightingale/.

Photograph:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/COPY_1_11_34_1866-e1402062188591.jpg

MLA - Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Florence Nightingale." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2019. Date accessed.

Chicago - Alexander, Kerri Lee. "Florence Nightingale." National Women's History Museum. 2019. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/florence-nightingale.

National Geographic Kids. “Florence Nightingale Facts for Kids.” April 26, 2018. https://www.natgeokids.com/za/discover/history/general-history/florence-nightingale/.

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Biography of Florence Nightingale, Nursing Pioneer

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Florence Nightingale (May 12, 1820–August 13, 1910), a nurse and social reformer, is considered the founder of the modern nursing profession who helped promote medical training and raise hygiene standards. She served as head nurse for the British during the Crimean War , where she was known as "The Lady With the Lamp" for her selfless service to sick and injured soldiers.

Fast Facts: Florence Nightingale

• Known For : Founder of modern nursing
• Also Known As : "The Lady With the Lamp," "The Angel of the Crimea"
• Born : May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy
• Parents : William Edward Nightingale, Frances Nightingale
• Died : August 13, 1910 in London, England
• Published Work : Notes on Nursing
• Awards and Honors : British Order of Merit
• Notable Quotes : “Rather, 10 times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.”

Early Life 

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy, to a comfortably prosperous family. She was born while her parents, William Edward Nightingale and Frances Nightingale, were on an extended European honeymoon. (Her father changed his name from Shore to Nightingale after inheriting his great-uncle’s estate in 1815.)

The family returned to England the next year, dividing their time between a home in Derbyshire in central England and a grander estate in Hampshire in the south-central part of the country. She and her older sister Parthenope were educated by governesses and then by their father. She studied classical Greek and Latin and modern French, German, and Italian. She also studied history, grammar, and philosophy and received tutoring in  mathematics  when she was 20, after overcoming her parents' objections.

From a young age, Nightingale was active in philanthropy, working with the ill and poor in the nearby village. Then, on Feb. 7, 1837, Nightingale heard the voice of God, she later said, telling her she had a mission, though it took some years for her to identify that mission.

By 1844, Nightingale had chosen a different path from the social life and marriage expected by her parents. Again over their objections, she decided to work in nursing, at the time a less-than-respectable profession for women.

In 1849, Nightingale refused a marriage proposal from a "suitable" gentleman, Richard Monckton Milnes, who had pursued her for years. She told him he stimulated her intellectually and romantically, but her "moral…active nature" called for something beyond a domestic life.

Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student in 1850 and 1851 at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany. She then worked briefly for a Sisters of Mercy hospital near Paris. Her views began to be respected. In 1853, she returned to England and took a nursing job at London's Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen. Her performance so impressed her employer that she was promoted to superintendent, an unpaid position.

Nightingale also volunteered at a Middlesex hospital, grappling with a cholera outbreak and unsanitary conditions that further spread the disease. She improved hygiene practices, significantly lowering the death rate at the hospital.

October 1853 marked the outbreak of the Crimean War, in which British and French forces fought the Russian Empire for control of Ottoman territory. Thousands of British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea, where supplies quickly dwindled. After the Battle of Alma, England was in an uproar over the lack of medical attention and appallingly unsanitary conditions faced by the ill and injured soldiers.

At the urging of a family friend, Secretary of War Sidney Herbert, Nightingale volunteered to take a group of female nurses to Turkey. In 1854, 38 women, including Anglican and Roman Catholic sisters, accompanied her to the front. She reached the military hospital at Scutari, Turkey, on Nov. 5, 1854.

Deplorable Conditions

They had been warned of horrible conditions, but nothing could have prepared them for what they found. The hospital sat atop a cesspool, which contaminated the water and the building. Patients lay in their own excrement. Basic supplies such as bandages and soap were scarce. More soldiers were dying from infectious diseases such as typhoid and cholera than from injuries sustained in battle.

Nightingale headed nursing efforts, improved sanitation, and ordered supplies using significant funds raised by the London Times , gradually winning over the military doctors.

She soon focused more on administration than on actual nursing, but she continued to visit the wards and to send letters home for the injured and ill soldiers. She insisted that she be the only woman in the wards at night, carrying a lamp as she made her rounds and earning the title "The Lady With the Lamp." The mortality rate at the hospital dropped from 60% at her arrival to 2% six months later.

Nightingale applied her education in mathematics to develop statistical analyses of disease and mortality, in the process popularizing the pie chart . She continued to fight the military bureaucracy and on March 16, 1856, she became general superintendent of the Female Nursing Establishment of the Military Hospitals of the Army.

Return to England

Nightingale returned home in the summer of 1856, once the Crimean conflict was resolved. She was surprised to find that she was a heroine in England, but she worked against public adulation. The previous year, Queen Victoria had awarded her an engraved brooch that became known as the "Nightingale Jewel" and a $250,000 grant, which she used in 1860 to fund the establishment of St. Thomas' Hospital, which included the Nightingale Training School for Nurses.

She wrote a massive report in 1857 analyzing her Crimean War experience and proposing reforms that sparked a restructuring of the War Office's administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army. She also wrote "Notes on Nursing," the first textbook for modern nursing, in 1859.

While working in Turkey, Nightingale had contracted brucellosis, a bacterial infection also known as Crimean fever, and would never fully recover. By the time she was 38 years old, she was homebound and routinely bedridden in London for the rest of her long life.

Working mostly from home, she founded the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses in London in 1860, using funds contributed by the public for her work in the Crimea. Nightingale collaborated with Elizabeth Blackwell , the first woman granted a medical degree in the United States, on starting the Woman's Medical College in their home country of England. The school opened in 1868 and operated for 31 years.

Nightingale was blind by 1901. In 1907 King Edward VII awarded her the Order of Merit, making her the first woman to receive that honor. She declined a national funeral and burial at Westminster Abbey, requesting that her grave be marked simply.

Her condition worsened In August 1910, but she seemed to recover and was in good spirits. On August 12, however, she developed a troubling array of symptoms and died around 2 p.m. the following day, August 13, at her home in London.

It's difficult to overstate the contributions that Florence Nightingale made to medicine, including her work on sanitation and hygiene and on organizational structures, and especially to nursing. Her fame encouraged many women to take up nursing, and her success in founding the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses and the Woman's Medical College opened the field to women around the world.

The Florence Nightingale Museum , at the site of the Nightingale Training School for Nurses, houses more than 2,000 artifacts commemorating the life and career of the "Angel of the Crimea" and "The Lady With the Lamp."

• " Florence Nightingale Biography ." Biography.com.
• " Florence Nightingale: British Nurse, Statistician, and Social Reformer ." Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Nightingale, Florence. "Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not." Dover Books on Biology, Paperback, 1 edition, Dover Publications, June 1, 1969.
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History | March 2020

The Defiance of Florence Nightingale

Scholars are finding there’s much more to the “lady with the lamp” than her famous exploits as a nurse in the Crimean War

Joshua Hammer; Photographs by Tina Hillier

Contributing writer

She’s the “avenging angel,” the “ministering angel,” the “lady with the lamp”—the brave woman whose name would become synonymous with selflessness and compassion. Yet as Britain prepares to celebrate Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday on May 12—with a wreath-laying at Waterloo Place, a special version of the annual Procession of the Lamp at Westminster Abbey, a two-day conference on nursing and global health sponsored by the Florence Nightingale Foundation, and tours of her summer home in Derbyshire—scholars are debating her reputation and accomplishments.

Detractors recently have chipped away at Nightingale’s role as a caregiver, pointing out that she served as a nurse for only three years. Meanwhile, perhaps surprisingly, some British nurses themselves have suggested they are tired of working in her shadow. But researchers are calling attention to her pioneering work as a statistician and as an early advocate for the modern idea that health care is a human right. Mark Bostridge, author of the biography Florence Nightingale , attributes much of the controversy to Nightingale’s defiance of Victorian conventions. “We are very uncomfortable still with an intellectually powerful woman whose primary aim has nothing to do with men or family,” Bostridge told me. “I think misogyny has a lot to do with it.”

To better understand this epic figure, I not only interviewed scholars and searched the archives but went to the place where the crucible of war transformed Nightingale into perhaps the most celebrated woman of her time: Balaklava, a port on the Crimean Peninsula, where a former Russian military officer named Aleksandr Kuts, who served as my guide, summed up Nightingale as we stood on the cliff near the site of the hospital where she toiled. “Florence was a big personality,” he said. “The British officers didn’t want her here, but she was a very insistent lady, and she established her authority. Nobody could stand in her way.”

She was named in honor of the Italian city where she was born on May 12, 1820. Her parents had gone there after being married. Her father, William Nightingale, had inherited at age 21 a family fortune amassed from lead smelting and cotton spinning, and lived as a country squire in a manor house called Lea Hurst in Derbyshire, set on 1,300 acres about 140 miles north of London. Tutored by their father in mathematics and the classics, and surrounded by a circle of enlightened aristocrats who campaigned for outlawing the slave trade and other reforms, Florence and her older sister, Parthenope, grew up amid intellectual ferment. But while her sister followed their mother’s example, embracing Victorian convention and domestic life, Florence had greater ambitions.

She “craved for some regular occupation, for something worth doing instead of frittering away time on useless trifles,” she once recalled. At 16, she experienced a religious awakening while at the family’s second home, at Embley Park, in Hampshire, and, convinced that her destiny was to do God’s work, she decided to become a nurse. Her parents—especially her mother—opposed the choice, since nursing in those days was regarded as disreputable, suitable only for lower-class women. Nightingale overcame her parents’ objections. “Both sisters were trapped in a gilded cage growing up,” says Bostridge, “but only Florence broke out of it.”

For years, she divided her time between the comforts of rural England and rigorous training and caregiving. She traveled widely in continental Europe, mastering her profession at the highly regarded Kaiserswerth nursing school in Germany. She served as superintendent of the Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen on Upper Harley Street in London, a hospital for governesses. And she cared for prostitutes during a cholera epidemic in 1853.

In 1854, British troops invaded the Russian-held Crimean Peninsula in response to aggressive moves by Czar Nicholas I to expand his territory. With the Ottoman and French armies, the British military laid siege to Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian fleet. Sidney Herbert, the secretary of state for war and a friend of the Nightingales, dispatched Florence to the Barrack Hospital at Scutari, outside Constantinople, where thousands of wounded and sick British troops had ended up, after being transported across the Black Sea aboard filthy ships. Now with 38 nurses under her command, she ministered to troops packed in squalid wards, many of them wracked by frostbite, gangrene, dysentery and cholera. The work would be later romanticized in The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari , a large canvas painted by Jerry Barrett in 1857 that today hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. (Barrett found Nightingale to be an impatient subject. Their first encounter, reported one of Barrett’s traveling companions, “was a trying one and left a painful impression. She received us just as a merchant would have during business hours.”)

Nightingale rankled commanding officers by going around them. “Miss Nightingale shows an ambitious struggling after power inimical to the true interests of the medical department,” John Hall, the chief British Army medical officer in Crimea, wrote angrily to his superior in London in late 1854 after Nightingale went over his head to order supplies from his stores. Yet she failed initially to stem the suffering. During her first winter at Scutari, 4,077 soldiers died—ten times more from typhus, cholera, typhoid fever and dysentery than from battle wounds. It wasn’t until a newly installed British government dispatched a sanitary commission to Scutari in March 1855 that deaths began to diminish. The commission cleaned out latrines and cesspits, flushed out sewers and removed a dead horse that was polluting the water supply. Within a few months, the mortality rate dropped from 42.7 percent to 2.2 percent.

Today, historians and public health experts debate Nightingale’s role in the turnaround at Scutari. Avenging Angel , a controversial 1998 biography by Hugh Small, contends that Scutari had the highest death rates of any hospital in the Crimean theater, that Nightingale didn’t grasp the role of sanitation in disease prevention until many thousands had died—the author maintains that she focused instead on giving troops warm clothing and hearty food—and that “repressed guilt” over her failures caused her to have a nervous breakdown, which, he argues, turned her into an invalid for long stretches throughout the rest of her life. The British news media picked up Small’s claims—“Nightingale’s Nursing Helped ‘Kill’ Soldiers,” a Sunday Times headline declared in 2001.

But Lynn McDonald, a professor emerita at the University of Guelph near Toronto and a leading Nightingale scholar, disputes Small’s claims. All Crimean War hospitals were ghastly, she insists, and the statistics suggest that at least two had higher death rates than Scutari. McDonald also makes a persuasive case that Nightingale believed the blame for Scutari’s dreadful state lay elsewhere. In her letters, she pointed repeatedly at military doctors and administrators, chastising them for a host of “murderous” errors including sending cholera cases to overcrowded wards and delaying having the hospital “drained and ventilated.” The sanitary commission’s investigation confirmed Nightingale’s suspicions about the links between filth and disease, McDonald contends, and she became determined never to let those conditions occur again. “That is the foundation of all she does in public health for the rest of her life,” McDonald says.

The Crimean War is largely forgotten now, but its impact was momentous. It killed 900,000 combatants; introduced artillery and modern war correspondents to conflict zones; strengthened the British Empire; weakened Russia; and cast Crimea as a pawn among the great powers. To reach Crimea, I had driven two hours south from the Ukrainian city of Kherson to one of the world’s tensest borders, where I underwent a three-hour interrogation by the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Besides questioning me about my background and intentions, the agents wanted to know how I felt about Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and even about President Trump’s decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria. Just as it was a century and a half ago, Crimea has become a geopolitical hotbed, pitting an expansionist Russia against much of the world.

In Balaklava, a fishing port, the rhythmic crash of waves against a sea wall resounded through the early morning air as I hiked up a goat trail. The ruins of two circular stone towers built by Genoese traders in the 14th century loomed on the hilltop a few hundred feet above me.

The rugged, boulder-strewn hills presented as treacherous an ascent as they did 165 years ago, when 34-year-old Nightingale would climb from the harbor to the Castle Hospital, a collection of huts and barracks on a flat patch of ground overlooking the Black Sea. She had sailed from Scutari across the Black Sea in May 1855 to inspect medical facilities near the front lines. “You are stepping on the same stones that Florence walked on,” says Aleksandr Kuts, my guide.

After an arduous half-hour, Kuts and I arrive at the plateau where the Castle Hospital once stood. There’s no physical trace of it now, but Nightingale’s letters and the accounts of colleagues who served beside her have kept the place alive in literature—and attest to her physical bravery.

At the Castle Hospital, Nightingale drilled borehole wells to improve the water supply and insulated huts with felt to protect wounded soldiers against the winter cold. Nightingale did indeed try to improve their food; she made sure that the soldiers regularly received meat, not just gristle and bone, along with fresh bread, which she had shipped in daily from Constantinople. She traveled constantly—by carriage, on horseback and on foot—with artillery fire echoing in the background, to inspect other hospitals in the hills that surrounded Balaklava. She even visited the trenches outside Sevastopol, where she was moved by the sight of the troops “mustering & forming at sundown,” she wrote, and plucked a Minié bullet from ground “ploughed with shot & shell” to send to her sister in England as a souvenir. Throughout her sojourn, she faced the resentment of officers and bureaucrats who regarded her as an interloper. “There is not an official who would not burn me like Joan of Arc if he could,” Nightingale wrote from Crimea, “but they know that the War Office cannot turn me out because the country is with me.”

Walking across the windswept plateau overlooking the Black Sea, I tried to imagine Nightingale waking in her cottage on these grounds to face another day caring for the sick and battling bureaucratic inertia in a war zone far from home. On her first interlude here, Nightingale fell ill with a malady that the British troops called “Crimean Fever,” later identified as almost certainly spondylitis, an inflammation of the vertebrae that would leave her in pain and bedridden for much of her life. Despite her illness, she was determined to work until the last British troops had gone home, and she returned twice during the war—once in October 1855, after the fall of Sevastopol, when she stayed for a little more than two months, and again amid the bitter winter of March 1856, and remained until July. “I have never been off my horse until 9 or 10 o’clock at night, except when it was too dark to walk home over these crags even with a lantern,” she wrote to Sidney Herbert in April 1856. “During the greater part of the day I have been without food, except a little brandy and water (you see I am taking to drinking like my comrades in the army).”

Nightingale sailed for England from Constantinople on July 28, 1856, four months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Crimean War. She had spent nearly two years in the conflict zone, including seven months on the Crimean Peninsula. Vivid dispatches filed from Scutari by correspondent Sir William Howard Russell, as well as a front-page engraving in the Illustrated London News showing Nightingale making her rounds with her lamp, had established her in the public eye as a selfless and heroic figure. By the time she returned home, she was the most famous woman in England after Queen Victoria.

Still, Nightingale had little interest in her celebrity. With William Farr, a mentor and noted government statistician, she gathered data from military hospitals in Constantinople that verified what she had long suspected: Nearly seven times as many British soldiers had died of disease in the Crimean War than in combat, and the deaths dropped dramatically once hospitals at the front were cleaned up. She also collated data from military hospitals in Great Britain, which revealed that these facilities were so poorly ventilated, filthy and overcrowded that their mortality rates far exceeded those at Scutari following the changes implemented by the Sanitary Commission. “Our soldiers enlist to death in the barracks,” she wrote. In “Notes Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army,” published in 1858, she and Farr displayed their findings in graphic illustrations known as coxcombs—circular designs divided into 12 sectors, each one representing a month—that clearly laid out the direct relationship between improved sanitation and plummeting death rates. These innovative diagrams, she said, were “designed ‘to affect thro’ the Eyes what we may fail to convey to the brains of the public through their word-proof ears.”

Swayed by her presentations, the military improved hospitals throughout Great Britain, and Parliament voted to finance the first comprehensive sewage system for London. “She was a one-woman pressure group and think tank,” says David Spiegelhalter, a University of Cambridge statistician and author.

Though often bedridden in London hotels and rented flats over the years, Nightingale continued to gather data on every aspect of medical care. She sent questionnaires to hospital administrators, collected and analyzed results, wrote reports, established investigative commissions. She produced findings on the proportion of recoveries and deaths from various diseases, average disease recovery times according to patients’ age and gender, and high rates of communicable disease such as septicemia among hospital workers. Nightingale came to believe, says Spiegelhalter, that “using statistics to understand how the world worked was to understand the mind of God.” In 1858, she became the first woman to be made a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Nightingale founded the country’s first nurses’ training school, at St. Thomas Hospital in London, across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, in 1860. She viewed the project as a moral crusade intended “to promote the honest employment, the decent maintenance and provision, to protect and restrain, to elevate in purifying...a number...of poor and virtuous women,” she wrote at the time.

Concern for society’s disadvantaged shaped her initiatives for the rest of her life. She criticized the Poor Laws, prodding Parliament to improve the workhouses—shelters for the indigent—by establishing separate wards for the sick and the infirm, introducing trained nurses and forming oversight boards. “She had a nonjudgmental, nonmoralistic view of the poor, which was radical at the time,” says Spiegelhalter. She wrote prolifically about crime, labor and the social causes of madness, and originated the concept that soldiers injured in war should be considered “neutral” and that they and their caregivers should be accorded protection on the battlefield. That ethic would become central to the International Committee of the Red Cross, founded in Geneva in 1863.

Nightingale’s personal life was complicated, and fuels speculation to this day. As a young woman, she had considered several marriage proposals, including one from Richard Monckton Milnes, an aristocratic politician and poet who was a frequent visitor at Lea Hurst, the Nightingale family estate. Charmed by him but also ambivalent about the compromises she would have to make as a married woman, Nightingale hesitated until it was too late. “Her disappointment when she heard he was getting married to someone else because she had waited so long was considerable,” says Bostridge. “But you have a choice as a Victorian woman. If you want to go out in the world and do something, then marriage and children are not really an option.” She was, in any case, a driven figure. “She has little or none of what is called charity or philanthropy,” her sister, Parthenope, wrote. “She is ambitious—very, and would like...to regenerate the world.”

Elizabeth Gaskell, the novelist and family friend who visited Lea Hurst in 1854, observed that Nightingale appeared far more interested in humanity in general than individuals. Bostridge is sympathetic. “It’s understandable when you’re trying to reform the world in so many ways, to be centered on the universal idea of mankind rather than individuals,” he says.

Some of Nightingale’s public health campaigns went on for decades. In the 1860s, she joined the social reformer Harriet Martineau in an attempt to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, which authorized the arrest and compulsory inspection for venereal disease of prostitutes around naval bases and garrison towns. Nightingale believed that the women’s male clientele were as responsible as the women in spreading disease, and she compiled statistical charts that showed the forced inspections were having no effect at bringing down the infection rates. The law was at last overturned in 1886.

Yet few members of the British public were aware of Nightingale’s role in the campaign, or in any of the other reforms that changed the face of British society. She had expressed her discomfort with fame as early as 1850, when she wrote in her diary that God had called upon her and asked, “Would I do good for Him, for Him alone, without the reputation?” After her Crimean War glory, “much of the British public thought she had died,” says Bostridge. But in 1907, Nightingale became the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, a highly prestigious award instituted by Edward VII. The ceremony resulted in a surge of renewed interest in the nearly forgotten nurse and social reformer. She died three years later, at the age of 90.

More than a century after her death, it may seem strange that out of all those who have stepped up to criticize Nightingale, perhaps the most vociferous have been some nurses in the British public services union UNISON. Some regard her as a privileged elitist who favored a strictly hierarchical approach to nursing, opposed higher education for nurses and wanted them to remain devout, chaste and obedient. UNISON declared in 1999 that Nightingale had “held the nursing profession back too long” and represented its most “negative and the backward elements.” The union demanded that International Nurses Day, celebrated on Nightingale’s birthday, be moved to a different date. Nightingale’s defenders fired back, insisting that the criticism was misplaced, and the attempt failed.

Meanwhile, a group in London recently campaigned to recognize the contributions of a different woman in the Crimean War: Mary Seacole, a black Jamaican entrepreneur who ran a restaurant for officers in Balaklava during the war and sometimes prepared medicines and conducted minor surgery on troops. Champions of Seacole insisted that she deserved the same kind of recognition that Nightingale has enjoyed, and, after years of lobbying, succeeded in erecting a statue of Seacole at St. Thomas Hospital. The monument contains the words of one of Seacole’s admirers, Times correspondent Sir William Howard Russell: “I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.”

The tribute outraged devotees of Nightingale, who insist that Seacole deserves no such recognition. “British nurses fell for the Seacole line,” says Lynn McDonald, who wrote a biography entitled Mary Seacole: The Making of the Myth that minimized her role as a nurse. McDonald claims that Seacole even harmed some troops by treating dysentery with lead and mercury. “She was feisty, independent and set up her own business,” McDonald says. “But what she mainly did was provide meals and wine to officers in her restaurant and takeaway. I’d be happy to have the statue disappear.”

The controversy would probably have vexed Nightingale, who had a pleasant encounter with Seacole in 1856, when the Jamaican stopped in Scutari on the way to Balaklava. Though Nightingale would later express misgivings about reports of hard drinking at Seacole’s restaurant, she would mostly have warm words for her. “I hear she has done a great deal of good for the poor soldiers,” she would say, even contributing to a fund for Seacole after she was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1857. Seacole returned the compliment, praising Nightingale in her autobiography with words that would make a fitting epitaph: “That Englishwoman whose name shall never die but sound like music on the lips of men until the end of doom.”

Lea Hurst is perched on a hill overlooking rolling lawns, groves of birch trees and the Derwent River. The 17th-century estate retains a pastoral, cloistered feeling, with gabled windows, stone chimneys jutting from the roof and deep red Virginia creeper climbing the handsome gray stone facade. Many years ago the Nightingale family property was eventually converted into a nursing home, but Peter Kay, a former banker who had worked in Singapore and Manila, purchased it four years ago. He lives here with his wife and four children and has been turning the house into a kind of Florence Nightingale museum.

Kay and his wife renovated the once-crumbling mansion and, with the help of an antiquarian friend in London, are filling it with period pieces and Nightingale memorabilia. A pocket-size prayer book signed by Nightingale sits on a sideboard, near a wooden sedan chair that a British officer seized from a Russian fort in Sevastopol.

Kay leads me through the green-painted library, where William Nightingale tutored his daughters. A nook with bay windows designed and built by Florence, an amateur architect, looks out over handsome fall foliage. Kay is now seeking to acquire the carriage that Nightingale rode in during her inspection tours through the hills of Crimea. It’s currently on display at the former home of Parthenope and her husband, Harry Verney, administered by the National Trust.

Kay and I walk upstairs to the bedroom wing, which he has recently made available to guests. I put down my suitcase in Nightingale’s bedchamber, with a balustraded balcony looking out on the Derwent River. “She had the option of having a society life in a nice big house, with a staff of servants. It was all mapped out for her,” says Kay, a self-taught Nightingale authority. “But she pushed against it and devoted herself to a higher calling. And she would single-mindedly break down barriers.”

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Joshua Hammer is a contributing writer to Smithsonian magazine and the author of several books, including The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts and The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird .

How Florence Nightingale’s Hygiene Crusade Saved Millions

Nightingale rebelled against her privileged background

The daughter of a wealthy landowner father and a mother descended from generations of merchants, Nightingale was born in Italy in 1820 while her parents were on an extended vacation. A smart but retiring girl, she shied away from her mother’s zeal for social status, including the expectation that Nightingale would marry a suitable man and settle down to raise a family.

She was well educated in the classics and showed an interest and aptitude in caring for the sick living near her family’s estate in Derbyshire. She was deeply spiritual and would later write about the “ divine calling ” from God that she experienced as a teen which inspired her decision to pursue nursing. Her parents were horrified — at the time, nursing was considered a profession for the lowest of classes and for many patients, admittance to crowded, dirty hospitals often meant death. But after refusing the marriage proposal of a suitor because she clamored for a more fulfilling life, her parents finally relented. She traveled to Germany and later France to study, picking up many of the organizational and nursing skills she would later champion.

The Crimean War was the beginning of her hygiene movement

After briefly serving as superintendent of London’s Institution for Sick Gentlewomen in Distressed Circumstances, Nightingale found herself called into action following the outbreak of war in 1853 between Russia and the allied forces of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire.

In 1854, news reports began carrying alarming headlines of the dangerous, deplorable conditions in British hospitals outside of Istanbul (then Constantinople). Nightingale swung into action , and by October, she and nearly 40 of her trained nurses were on their way to the front. They were shocked by what they found — severe overcrowding, poor food supplies, shoddy management and filthy quarters that were a breeding ground of infectious diseases like cholera, typhoid, typhus and dysentery, leading Nightingale to dub it the “Kingdom of Hell.” Male British officials initially refused to allow the women to work in the hospital, only relenting when a new wave of battle casualties flooded the ward.

Nightingale and her nurses went to work, scrubbing every inch of the facilities, insisting on regular bathing of patients and frequently changed, fresh linens from a newly established laundry. She solicited donations from Britain to purchase desperately needed bandages and soap and served specialized meals out of a new commissary. She railed against the poor ventilation and sewage system, insisting on bringing as much fresh air to the facility as possible, a decision that would influence the building of future hospitals around the world.

Within six months of her implemented changes, the hospital’s mortality rate had dropped precipitously from its previous high of 40 percent. Nightingale also introduced new approaches to the emotional and psychological side of patient care, with her nurses helping soldiers write letters home and Nightingale herself walking the ward at night with a lantern to check on her charges.

The nurse used statistics to prove that her theories worked

Upon her return from the Crimean War, Nightingale quickly put her fame to use. At the behest of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert , she wrote an extensive study, using her records to highlight the deadly toll of poor hygiene and sanitary conditions in British Army hospitals and military camps, leading to a massive reorganization of the British War Office.

One of the first to adopt what is now known as the “pie chart,” Nightingale also developed “ Coxcombs ,” or “rose” charts, which she used to assess mortality rates from the Crimean War, using applied statistics to differentiate from deaths caused by disease versus those due to battle. Nightingale estimated that 10 times as many British soldiers died from disease than combat during the war.

As British control of the Indian subcontinent expanded, she was pressed into duty again, developing a series of surveys sent to military installations and hospitals, which led to medical and scientific improvements for both soldiers and civilians across India. She would even consult with doctors and medical professionals in the United States, using her data and studies to advise on sanitary conditions in field hospitals during the American Civil War . Her achievements led to her selection as the first woman admitted to the Royal Statistical Society.

Nightingale revolutionized the nursing profession

Using donations and a sizable gift from the British government for her service in Crimea, Nightingale established the Nightingale Training School for Nurses, based at London’s St. Thomas’ Hospital, in 1860, followed two years later by a school for midwives. Women flocked to the schools, as previous notions of nursing as a lowly occupation faded away. Every nurse received one year of training and coursework followed by a two-year stint in hospital wards, after which many of them brought her gospel of cleanliness and care to medical facilities around the world.

Despite increasing ill health from diseases she had contracted during the war, which left her bedridden, Nightingale wrote extensively. Two of her works, Notes on Hospitals and Notes on Nursing: What it Is and What it is Not , laid out her theories for future generations of health care professionals and remain in print to this day. They include practical advice on key topics, including the need for fresh air and ventilation, dietary rules, how to compassionately (but honestly) care for the desperately ill and, of course, good sanitation and hygiene, including the dictum : "Every nurse ought to be careful to wash her hands very frequently during the day. If her face too, so much the better."

She was a pioneer in the field of public health

Nightingale’s accomplishments soon expanded past the confines of hospitals, turning her attention to Britain’s teeming, overcrowded slums and filthy workhouses, which saw the sick poor, including children, the mentally ill and those with incurable illnesses housed together. She worked with social reformers and urban planners on pioneering studies that shed light on the crushing medical, emotional and financial burdens of Britain’s poor.

She advised philanthropist William Rathbone on the development of a new “district nursing” plans, which saw skilled, trained nurses sent out to minister to the public in both hospitals and private homes, first in Liverpool and then across Britain. Her work and writings on public health played a key role in the passage of legislation that put health care decisions in the hands of local officials, not a centralized bureau, who were best equipped to deal with issues in their communities.

Nightingale continued her advocacy work until her death in 1910 at 90 years old, and her influence on the greater medical world is still felt today.

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 MacTutor

Florence nightingale.

... worsted work and practising quadrilles,

... her zeal, her devotion, and her perseverance would yield to no rebuff and to no difficulty. She went steadily and unwearyingly about her work with a judgement, a self-sacrifice, a courage, a tender sympathy, and withal a quiet and unostentatious demeanour that won the hearts of all who were not prevented by official prejudices from appreciating the nobility of her work and character.

... preventable or mitigable zymotic diseases

... had clearly marked out ... to be a single woman.

References ( show )

• Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale
• Obituary in The Times See THIS LINK
• B Johansson ( ed. ) , God Bless You My Dear Miss Nightingale ( Stockholm, 1977) .
• M Keele, Florence Nightingale in Rome ( New York, 1981) .
• I B Cohen, Florence Nightingale, Scientific American 250 ( March 1984) , 128 - 137 .
• S Stinnett, Women in Statistics : Sesquicennial Activities, The American Statistician 44 (2) (1990) , 74 - 80 .

Additional Resources ( show )

Other pages about Florence Nightingale:

• Times obituary
• Multiple entries in The Mathematical Gazetteer of the British Isles ,
• Miller's postage stamps

Other websites about Florence Nightingale:

• Dictionary of National Biography
• Plus Magazine
• Agnes Scott College
• Florence Nightingale Museum
• Sci Hi blog
• Google doodle

Honours ( show )

Honours awarded to Florence Nightingale

• Popular biographies list Number 60
• Google doodle 2008

Cross-references ( show )

• History Topics: Statistics index
• Societies: American Statistical Association
• Other: 10th May
• Other: 2009 Most popular biographies
• Other: 21st October
• Other: Churches
• Other: Jeff Miller's postage stamps
• Other: London individuals N-R
• Other: Most popular biographies – 2024
• Other: Other Institutions in central London
• Other: Oxford individuals
• Other: Popular biographies 2018

World History Edu

• Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale’s Biography & Greatest Accomplishments

by World History Edu · August 5, 2021

Florence Nightingale was an English-born nurse who is generally revered as the founder of modern nursing. A diligent humanitarian activist, statistician and social reformer, Nightingale achieved greatness by selflessly tending to injured soldiers during the Crimean War (1853-1856). Inspired from an early age, she was a strong humanitarian who devoted bulk of her life to the service of people in need.

Nightingale’s humanitarian efforts saw her appeal for hunger relief in India as well as advocated healthcare for everyone in her country. Her commitment to patient care and unbridled compassion are just some of the reasons why she remains remembered to this day.

What else was this renowned nurse known for? Discover 10 achievements of Florence Nightingale, the Mother of Nursing and one of Britain’s most iconic personalities of the Victorian era.

Florence Nightingale – Biography and Achievements

Florence Nightingale: Fast Facts

Birthday : May 12, 1820

Place of birth : Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Italy

Died : August 13, 1910

Place of death : Mayfair, London, England, United Kingdom

Cause of death : Heart failure

Father: William Edward Nightingalae (1794 – 1874)

Mother : Frances (“Fanny”) Nightingale (1788 – 1880)

Siblings: Frances Parthenope

Specialty: Sanitation, Statistics, Hospital hygiene

Notable Awards : Royal Red Cross (1883), St John (LGSTJ) (1904), Order of Merit (1907)

Best known for : Nursing injured soldiers during the Crimean War

Institutions : Selimiye Barracks, Scutari (in present day Turkey), King’s College London

Nickname: “The Lady with the Lamp”

Florence Nightingale’s calling to the humanitarian profession

Born in Florence, Tuscany, Italy, Florence Nightingale grew up in an affluent and well-networked English family. Contrary to what many people would have done, Florence chose to pursue humanitarian causes.

It’s been said that she was partly inspired on to that part by some charitable works of her parents – Frances Nightingale and William Edward Nightingale. For example, her paternal grandfather, William Smith, was a well-known Unitarian and abolitionist. It’s also been said that Florence believed her path to humanitarian causes came as a result of receiving calls from God at the age of 17.

In spite of her parents’ (mostly from her mother) resistance to her choice of profession, Florence Nightingale remained resolute as she pursued a career choice in nursing. She was well into her 30s before she made it known to her parents that she would stick with nursing as a career. Then and there, she knew she was bound to devote the rest of her life to service of people in need.

Nightingale shunned her sister’s and mother’s advice for her to live the life that was expected of any affluent English woman. She certainly could have done so as she was described as extremely attractive and graceful.

In her diary while visiting Egypt in the winter of 1850

Her first nursing gig

The early 1850s saw Florence Nightingale spend a couple of years abroad, touring places in Europe and Egypt. Around that same period, Nightingale took a six-month training course at Kaiserswerth-am-Rhein in Germany. That training broadened her knowledge in care giving and the setting up of humanitarian projects.

Kind courtesy to the very generous stipends given to her by her father, Nightingale did not have much difficulty following her path as a superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London.

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Florence Nightingale biography

Introduction

Famous for being the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who organised the nursing of sick and wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale’s far-sighted ideas and reforms have influenced the very nature of modern healthcare.

Her greatest achievement was to transform nursing into a respectable profession for women and in 1860, she established the first professional training school for nurses, the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas’ Hospital.

...read more

…She campaigned tirelessly to improve health standards, publishing over 200 books, reports and pamphlets on hospital planning and organisation which are still widely read and respected today, including her most famous work Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not.

Florence’s influence on today’s nursing ranges from her ward designs (known as Nightingale Wards), which were developed in response to her realisation that hospital buildings themselves could affect the health and recovery of patients, through to pioneering infection control measures and the championing of a healthy diet as a key factor for recovery. Florence also believed in the need for specialist midwifery nurses and established a School of Midwifery nursing at King’s College Hospital which became a model for the country.

Florence is also credited with inventing a sort of pie-chart which she called a coxcomb diagramme (to show statistics visually) and was the first woman to be elected to the Royal Statistical Society. She was also the second woman to be awarded the Freedom of the City of London, which she received in 1908.

She inspired the founding of the International Red Cross which still awards the Florence Nightingale Medal for nurses who have given exceptional care to the sick and wounded in war or peace.

For more information we recommend Mark Bostridge’s book “Florence Nightingale”, available from both our gift shop and online shop.

Early years

Born in an era when middle-class women were expected to simply make a good marriage and raise a family, Florence sensed a ‘calling’ from God at an early age and believed she was destined to do something greater with her life. As a child, she was very academic and particularly interested in mathematics. Her religion gave her a strong sense of moral duty to help the poor and, over time, she held a growing belief that nursing was her God-given vocation. She was also perhaps set to follow the family tradition of reform mindedness, such as the example set by her maternal grandfather who was an anti-slavery campaigner.

Paid nursing suffered a reputation as a job for poor, often elderly women, and the popular image was one of drunkenness, bad language and a casual attitude to patients. Despite parental concern, she persisted in her ambition, reading anything she could about health and hospitals. Eventually she persuaded them to allow her to take three months’ nursing training at an inspirational hospital and school in Dusseldorf. Aged 33, she then became superintendent of a hospital for ‘gentlewomen’ in Harley Street, London.

The Crimean War

In March 1854, reports flooded in about the dreadful conditions and lack of medical supplies suffered by injured soldiers fighting the Crimean War. The Minister of War, a social acquaintance, invited Florence to oversee the introduction of female nurses into the military hospitals in Turkey. With a party of 38 nurses, Florence arrived in Scutari that November and set about organising the hospitals to improve supplies of food, blankets and beds, as well as the general conditions and cleanliness. The comforting sight of her checking all was well at night earned her the name ‘Lady of the Lamp’, along with the undying respect of the British soldiers.

Reforming spirit

The introduction of female nurses to the military hospitals was deemed an outstanding success, Florence returned to Britain a heroine, and donations poured in to the Nightingale Fund. The money collected enabled Florence to continue her reform of nursing in the civil hospitals of Britain after the war. Determined that the medical mistakes of the two-year long war were never repeated, she vividly communicated the needs for medical reform using statistical charts which showed that more men had died from disease than from their wounds. She then instigated a Royal Commission into the health of the army which led to a large number of improvements and saved the lives of many.

Her attention later turned to the health of the British army in India and she demonstrated that bad drainage, contaminated water, overcrowding and poor ventilation were causing the high death rate. She concluded that the health of the army and the people of India had to go hand in hand and so campaigned to improve the sanitary conditions of the country as a whole.

The Nightingale Training School was established in 1860 using donations from the Nightingale Fund. Its reputation soon spread and Nightingale nurses were requested to start new schools all over the world, including Australia, America and Africa.

Despite often being confined to her sick bed, by what we now believe was a bacterial infection known as brucellosis, Florence continued as a driving force behind the scenes, writing some 13000 letters as part of her campaigns. She met Queen Victoria on many occasions and exchanged correspondence for over thirty years. Florence was awarded the Royal Red Cross in 1883. Then in 1907 she was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, Britain’s highest civilian decoration.

Florence died aged 90, on 13th August 1910, and was buried alongside the graves of other family members in East Wellow, Hampshire.

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Biography Online

Florence Nightingale Biography

Short bio of Florence Nightingale

Born in 1820 to a wealthy family, Florence was educated at home by her father. She aspired to serve others, in particular, she wanted to become a nurse. Her parents were opposed to her aspirations – at that time, nursing was not seen as an attractive or ‘respectable’ profession. Despite her parents’ disapproval, Florence went ahead and trained to be a nurse. Florence later wrote that she felt suffocated by the vanities and social expectations of her upbringing. On one occasion, sitting in her parent’s garden, she felt a call from God to serve others. She resolved to try and follow God’s will in being of service to others.

Florence had the opportunity to marry, but she refused a couple of suitors. She felt marriage would enslave her in domestic responsibilities.

In 1853, the Crimea war broke out. This was a bloody conflict leading to many casualties on both sides. Reports of the British casualties were reported in the press; in particular, it was noted that the wounded lacked even the most basic of first aid treatment. Many soldiers were dying unnecessarily. This was a shock to the British public, as it was one of the first wars to be reported vividly in the press back home.

Later in 1855, Florence Nightingale was asked (with the help of her old friend Sydney Herbert) to travel to the Crimea and organise a group of nurses. Many of the initial applicants were unsuitable, and Florence was strict in selecting and training the other nurses. Nightingale was helped in using nurses trained by Elizabeth Fry’s school of nurses. Nightingale was an admirer of Fry, who amongst other things campaigned for better prison conditions.

Florence was very glad to be able to take up the post and put in to use her training as a nurse. They were based at the staff hospital at Scutari. She was overwhelmed by the primitive and chaotic conditions. There were insufficient beds for the men and conditions were terrible; the place smelt, was dirty, and even had rats running around spreading disease. Speaking of Scutari Hospital, Florence Nightingale said:

“The British high command had succeeded in creating the nearest thing to hell on earth.”

In the beginning, the nurses were not even allowed to treat the dying men; they were only instructed to clean the hospital. But, eventually, the number of casualties became so overwhelming the doctors asked Florence and her team of nurses to help.

A contemporary of Florence Nightingale was Jamaican nurse, Mary Seacole , who worked on her own initiative from a base in Balaclava near the front line.

By the time she returned home, she had become a national heroine and was decorated with numerous awards including one from Queen Victoria .

Florence Nightingale at St Thomas Hospital

After the war, she didn’t appreciate the fame but continued to work for the improvement of hospital conditions, writing to influential people encouraging them to improve hygiene standards in hospitals. It was after her return from the Crimea that some of her most influential work occurred.

With the help of donations to the Nightingale Fund, she was able to found a training school for nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital, London. In  (1859) she wrote Notes on Nursing. This became a standard reference book for those entering the nursing profession and also the general public who wished to learn basic techniques. Her writings and example were highly influential in the direction of nursing in the Nineteenth Century. She inspired nursing in the American Civil War, and in 1870 trained Linda Richards, who returned to the US where she developed the nursing profession in America.

Nightingale was a pioneer in using statistical methods to quantify the effect of different practices. She also had an ability to present dense statistical data in an easy to read format. She made extensive use of pie charts and circular histograms to clarify the essential points.

Ironically, she found that some of her own methods of treating soldiers decreased recovery rates. But, this scientific approach to dealing with hospital treatment helped to improve standards and the quality of care.

As well as nursing, Nightingale was concerned with other areas of social reform. This included better health care in Workhouses and schools and reform to the prostitution laws which often victimised female prostitutes. Nightingale was also concerned about the famine in India and made detailed investigations into the standard of sanitation and hygiene in India. Nightingale took a practical approach, endeavouring to improve aspects of life

“I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.”

Nightingale also wrote about the role of women in society – she called for women to be less passive and take a greater role in society.

“Why have women passion, intellect, moral activity — these three — and a place in society where no one of the three can be exercised?”

– Cassandra (1860)

Nightingale herself was a leading pioneer in taking an active lead in the political life of the country at a time when female activism was rare. At the same time, Nightingale didn’t always agree with women’s rights activists and could be dismissive of other women:

“I have never found one woman who has altered her life by one iota for me or my opinions.”

Religious views

Florence Nightingale took an active interest in religious and spiritual issues. She was a member of the Church of England but took a broad ecumenical approach – believing there was truth in different Christian denominations and also Eastern religions. She also wrote on mysticism and the religious practice of seeking divinity from within.

“Where shall I find God? In myself. That is the true Mystical Doctrine. But then I myself must be in a state for Him to come and dwell in me. This is the whole aim of the Mystical Life; and all Mystical Rules in all times and countries have been laid down for putting the soul into such a state.”

Florence Nightingale – Notes from Devotional Authors of the Middle Ages (1873-1874)

Florence Nightingale died at the age of 90 in 1910.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Florence Nightingale”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net , 25th Nov 2010. Last Updated 8th March 2019.

Related pages

Florence Nightingale Links

• Florence Nightingale Quotes
• Florence Nightingale at BBC
• Florence Nightingale Museum

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Thank you for your amazing article! Do you mind giving me your name so I can give you credit for your works in my bibliography?

• April 27, 2017 3:08 PM

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• v.93(4); 2020 Oct

Florence Nightingale bicentennial: 1820–2020. Her contributions to health care improvement

Dinu i. dumitrascu.

1 Department of Anatomy, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Liliana David

2 Department of Nursing, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Dan L. Dumitrascu

3 2 nd Department of Internal medicine, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Liliana Rogozea

4 Department of the History of Medicine and Department of Nursing, Transilvania University, Brasov, Romania

In 2020 we celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of Florence Nightingale and 110 years from her death (1820–1910). This gives us the opportunity to remember her life and her achievements. She is mainly known for her contribution to the foundation of modern nursing in the British Empire and subsequently to the world. Besides her personal engagement in the Crimean War, she organized a professional training for nurses, wrote the first textbook on nursing (“Notes on Nursing”) and took public positions in favor of health care and philanthropic funding. She was a militant for the rights of the women and for social justice. She was a pioneer of medical statistics and hospital management. Her activity is acknowledged worldwide.

This year we celebrate one of the most famous health care providers of the world: Florence Nightingale. Beside representing the “mother” of modern nursing, she was very much engaged in improving the life of war victims, of women and of deprived persons. Considering the importance of this bicentennial, we review here her biography and her work and contributions to medical progress.

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy. In her honor, this day will become, starting with 1965, the International Nurses Day. Her name was given by her parents in recognition of the city where they lived at that moment. Florence Nightingale left this world in London on August 13, 1910, after a very intense life filled with many accomplishments [ 1 ]. Her youth portrait is presented in figure 1 .

Florence Nightingale, lithographic reproduction of 1857 (private collection).

From the youngest age she developed a strong feeling of philanthropy and expressed the wish to help others. Therefore, she refused the common life path of ladies of that time, rejected advantageous marriage proposals and engaged in the study of nursery against the wish of her family [ 2 , 3 ]. Despite the wish of her parents she insisted and started nursing studies at the level of that time, in Germany. She chose Kaiserwerth, now part of Dusseldorf, where a well-known deaconry run by protestant nuns existed since 1836 thanks to the couple Theodor and Friederike Fliedner [ 4 ]. At that time, she could care for patients only in women rooms, while male patients were allocated to male care givers. At night female nurses were not allowed in rooms for male patients. She continued her training in nursing also in France [ 1 , 2 ]. Later she returned to England and since 1853 she worked in a home called the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen [ 5 ]. These early years of activity were in fact the prologue of her lifelong work, which started with the onset of the Crimean War.

Participation to the Crimean War and care of wounded and ill soldiers

The so-called Crimean War was in fact a pan-European war in which Russia was confronted with most major European powers contesting tsarist empire spread over Europe to the detriment of Ottoman Empire. The conflict started in 1853 with the occupation of Moldavia and Walachia by Russian troops and spread in Crimea, where the main and bloodiest battles were engaged until the end of 1856. The fights were intense and massive casualties were produced. The British Empire participated to the Crimean War and needed medical service for its army. Florence Nightingale travelled there together with her dedicated staff to care for the wounded on the battlefield and on field hospitals. She became famous for the lamp she always had with her to see the wounded during night, hence her nickname “the lady with the lamp”.

She was an example of enthusiasm and abnegation and motivated her staff (many of them nuns) to take care of those in need in the improvised hospital in Scutari, Turkey, where she worked. There she was able to reduce mortality to 10%. Beside the possibility to actively offer care and support to the victims of war, she drew a few conclusions: the need to organize a nursing system able to provide assistance during war but also during peace; the need to care and protect casualties of the war and prisoners of war. Indeed, everything was missing: hygiene regulations, medicines, skilled assistance, food [ 6 ].

In this respect her conception converged very much to that of Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross in 1863, inspired by the terrible impressions of the Solferino battlefield that he visited just after the battle, in 1859.

It is well known that every prominent person has detractors, and the same happened to Florence Nightingale. A Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole claimed over Florence Nightingale the overhand of infirmary care and disputed her merits from the point of view of the negritude movement [ 1 , 7 ].

Founding of modern nursing

Her activity during the Crimean War was well reflected in the contemporary journals and increased the awareness of the need to launch an efficient nursing training and system. Florence Nightingale again was ahead of her time and created in London a nursing school in St Thomas Hospital. She also wrote the “Notes on Nursing”, probably the first textbook on nursing. For her activity she needed and received philanthropic funding.

Soon the Civil War started in the United Stated of America and Florence Nightingale served as an adviser for American nurses. She also trained the first American nurse Linda Richards (1841–1930).

In the following decades, her disciples became important disseminators of the training of Nightingale and contributed to the establishment of a quality nursing in the United Kingdom, which served as an example for other countries as well.

Despite a mysterious disease that disabled her now and again during the second half of the 19 th Century (maybe brucellosis?), she remained very much engaged in the care of ill people and in the education of nurses.

Contributions to surgery

Florence Nightingale did not have a direct surgical activity, but dealing with war injuries involves a lot of surgery. Her activity must have included hemostasis, wound cleaning and dressing, prevention of infection. As many health care providers of that time, she was long time not convinced by the existence of pathogenic germs; nevertheless, after the work of Pasteur and others became known, she was cautious in preventing the transmission of infections. She was decisive in the creation of the British Army Medical Service and thus her achievements are a corner stone for military surgery [ 8 ]. Therefore she is even now veneered for her personal commitment in war medical health care [ 9 ].

Other contributions

Beside nursing and military and civil healthcare she had important contributions to the healthcare system management, to medical statistics, to emancipation of women, for social equality [ 1 ]. She emphasized the importance of numbers, i.e. of statistics in healthcare providing: number of beds, number of patients, number of cases etc. [ 10 – 12 ]. These data served her to take decisions in regard to hospital administration and public health measures [ 13 , 14 ]. Her public interventions were always disseminated by journals and were influential for the public health policies of that time.

Cultural echoes

Not only in the United Kingdom, but throughout the world there are hospitals, streets, nursing schools who bear her name. The impact of the life and work of Florence Nightingale is largely reflected on different memorabilia: lithographs ( Figure 1 ), postcards, stamps ( Figure 2 ), coins, etc.

Stamp issued by United Nations Vienna office on 12 May 2020.

The Florence Nightingale Museum in London contributes to the perpetuation of the personality and achievement of Florence Nightingale. Figure 3 represents a painting from this Museum (published with the kind permission of the Museum director).

Nursing activity of Florence Nightingale in Scutari Hospital (Florence Nightingale Museum, photograph 2019; with permission of the Museum).

Echoes of Florence Nightingale’s activity in Romania

Most scholars of the history of medicine are familiar in Romania with this name. However, not many know in detail her biography. Unfortunately, there are no monographs dedicated to her to our knowledge.

Some papers about her are in the press, but for general information, not for those with advanced interest in her. Most of them were published in the observation of her bicentennial. One single medical paper indexed in the EBSCO database can be retrieved [ 1 ]. Her spirit is however reflected in some papers on nosocomial infections [ 15 ].

Conclusions

Florence Nightingale had an enormous contribution to the development of health care. She is indeed the founder of modern scientifically based nursing. Her achievement should be better reflected and disseminated by historians of medicine.

Women Heroes

Florence nightingale.

The nurse who changed hospitals for the better

Florence Nightingale just wanted to help. As a young woman in England in the 1840s, she saw how hard it was for poor people to get help when they were sick. She wanted to be a nurse, but her rich parents thought that the job was beneath her, that she should instead marry a wealthy man. Defying what most women of her time would do, she went to Germany to study nursing.

Born on May 12, 1820, Nightingale was smart and observant. At her first job in the early 1850s, caring for sick teachers in London, England, she became superintendent after quickly showing her talent for helping the sick get better. It was also when she developed ideas that would change healthcare forever.

The mostly male doctors of the day focused on treating the diseases patients came into the hospital with, and not necessarily on how the diseases spread. (The idea of germs spreading diseases hadn’t quite caught on yet.) But while volunteering at a hospital during a cholera outbreak, Nightingale noticed that people were catching and spreading diseases inside the hospital itself. It was then she realized that dirty conditions inside hospitals might be spreading diseases, and that if hospitals were cleaner, patients might be safer.

In 1853, England and France went to war with Russia in what is now Turkey , an event called the Crimean War. Nightingale was asked to lead a team of 38 nurses at the British military hospital in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey). When she arrived, she was shocked to discover that more soldiers were dying from infectious diseases like typhoid and cholera than from battle wounds. Taking charge, she had the hospital scrubbed, then created diagrams and graphs to show that if hospitals were cleaner, fewer people would die. According to some sources, because of her efforts the hospital’s death rate dropped from about 40 percent to around 2 percent.

The “Lady With the Lamp”—soldiers’ nickname for her because of her habit of walking dark hallways to care for them—returned to England after the war ended in 1856. Two years later she became the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society for her use of graphs in healthcare, and in 1860 she founded the Nightingale Home and Training School for Nurses to properly train healthcare workers.

King George V sent Nightingale a personal birthday message on her 90 th birthday; she died a few months later on August 13, 1910 . But even today, doctors and nurses care for patients using the safe methods that she developed, making sure that those patients’ health only improves when they enter a hospital.

Read this next

Women's history month, the women's suffrage movement, african american heroes.

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The life of Florence Nightingale

The founder of modern nursing, and the lady with the lamp….

Discover how one remarkable woman changed the face of nursing forever in our Florence Nightingale facts…

Have you or your family ever been poorly and had to go to hospital? Did you notice all the hard work the nurses were doing to care for the patients and help them get better? 

Today, nurses are recognised as important , super-skilled professionals . But that hasn’t always been the case. Believe it or not, at the start of the 19th century, nurses usually had no training at all, and they weren’t even paid for the ‘menial’ work they did! But one woman changed all that… meet the amazing Florence Nightingale .

Florence Nightingale facts

Who was florence nightingale.

Born : 12 May 1820 in Florence, Italy Lived in : England, UK Occupation : Nurse Died : 13 August 1910 Best known for : Founding modern nursing Also known as : Lady with the Lamp

Florence Nightingale was born in the city of Florence, Italy , on 12 May 1820 whilst her parents were enjoying a long honeymoon. And yup, you guessed it – that’s how she got her name! Her parents were called William and Fanny Nightingale , and she had one older sister, too – Frances Parthenope , AKA ‘Pop’.

William Nightingale was a wealthy banker and was able to provide his family with a very privileged life. They had servants and two lovely houses – a winter home in Hampshire and a summer home in Derbyshire.

At the time that Florence was a youngster, most girls didn’t go to school – in fact, many didn’t receive any education at all! But William was keen for his daughters to learn, and gave them lessons in lots of different subjects, including science, history and maths.

What did Florence Nightingale do?

In Victorian Britain , wealthy women like Florence weren’t expected to work – their job was to marry and look after the home. Daily life was spent seeing to servants, entertaining guests, reading, sewing and attending social events. But Florence saw something very different for her future. When she was 16 years old, she believed she heard a voice from God calling for her to  carry out important work to help those suffering . She wanted to be a nurse.

When Florence broke the news to her parents, they weren’t too happy! Nursing was not a respectful profession and, what’s more, hospitals were filthy, horrible places where sick people died – certainly no place for wealthy girl like Florence! William tried hard to change his daughter’s mind, but Florence was determined. In 1851, he gave in, and allowed Florence to study nursing at a Christian school for women in Germany . There, she learned important skills in caring for patients and the importance of hospital cleanliness .

It wasn’t long before Florence put her new skills to the test. By 1853 she was running a women’s hospital in London, where she did a fantastic job improving the working conditions as well as patient care.

Did you know that we have a FREE downloadable Florence Nightingale primary resource? Great for teachers, homeschoolers and parents alike!

The Crimean War

In 1854, the Crimean War broke out – a war with Britain, France and Turkey on one side, and Russia on the the other. British troops went off to fight in the Crimea – an area in the south of Russia, now part of Ukraine. News soon reached home of soldiers dying from battle wounds, cold, hunger and sickness, with no real medical care or nurses to treat them. Help was needed fast, and the Minister for War – called Sidney Herbert – knew just the person… He asked Florence to lead a team of nurses to the Crimea!

When they arrived, the nurses found the Army hospital in Scutari (the area where wounded soldiers were sent) in a terrible state. It was overcrowded and filthy, with blocked drains, broken toilets and rats running everywhere. Imagine the smell! There weren’t enough medical supplies or equipment, and wounded soldiers had to sleep on the dirty floor, without blankets to keep warm, clean water to drink or fresh food to eat. Not surprisingly, disease spread quickly and most of the soldiers died from infection.

Florence Nightingale to the rescue!

Florence knew that the soldiers could only get well again if the hospital conditions improved. With funds from back home, she bought better medical equipment and decent food, and paid for workmen to clear the drains. And together with her team, she cleaned the wards , set up a hospital kitchen and provided the wounded soldiers with quality care – bathing them, dressing their wounds and feeding them. As a result of all the improvements, far fewer soldiers were dying from disease.

Why was Florence Nightingale the Lady with the Lamp?

Florence Nightingale truly cared for her suffering patients . At night, when everyone was sleeping, she’d   visit the soldiers to make sure they were comfortable. She’d also write letters home for those who could not write themselves. Since Florence carried a lantern with her on her night visits, the soldiers would call her ‘ The Lady with the Lamp’ .

Florence after the Crimean War

By the time Florence returned to England in 1856, she’d made quite a name for herself. After newspapers wrote about her work in the Crimea, people thought of her as a heroine. Queen Victoria wrote her a letter to say thank you for everything she had done. Cool, eh?

But Florence had no care for fame, and even though the war was over, there was still work to be done. She set about writing letters to important people telling them what was wrong with Army hospitals, and in September 1856 she met with Queen Victoria to discuss ways to improve military medical systems. Huge reform took place – the Army started to train doctors, hospitals became cleaner and soldiers were provided with better clothing, food and care. Go, Flo!

In 1860, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses opened at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. Not only did the school provide excellent nurse training, it made nursing a respectable career for women who wanted to work outside the home. 

How is Florence Nightingale remembered?

Florence suffered from illness for much of her later life, largely because of all her hard work helping sick people. In fact, during her final 40 years she spent many days confined to her bed. But she was greatly appreciated for everything she did for nursing, and for saving the lives of thousands of people . In 1907, Florence became the first woman to receive the Order of Merit , an award given by the queen for super-special work.

Sadly, Florence Nightingale died on 13 of August 1910, but she will forever be recognised as the founder of modern nursing.

What do you think of our Florence Nightingale facts? Leave a comment below and let us know!

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She is so kind and she helped all the soldiers by writing letters to their family

Florence nightingale was AWESOME!

Thanks for it I respect Florence Nightingale and for her work

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Great information!!

She was a powerful, kind spirited individual. Amazing!

She was great

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she was an amazing lady

I think that the information is really helpful and it helped me with my speech. Thank you

My mother was a nurse and simply adored this remarkable lady and also mother Theresa. And it is so important that we look back with pride of their extrodinary sacrifice over many years. Where are they today. God bless them both,

wow she is awsome

Florence Nightingale is wonderful indeed. She's amazing. I wish I can be good like her.

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amazing story

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I think that they are very interesting and you know lots of facts because I learnt about Florence Nightingale and you still know more!

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• Florence Nightingale: Environmental Theory

Get to know the concepts behind Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory in this study guide about nursing theories . Learn about Nightingale’s biography, her career, her works that shaped nursing. The next part is an in-depth discussion about her Environmental Theory, its metaparadigm, major, and subconcepts, including its application to nursing practice. 

Table of Contents

Personal life, environmental theory, crimean war, awards and honors, human beings, environment, health of houses, ventilation and warming, bed and bedding, personal cleanliness, nutrition and taking food, chattering hopes and advice, social considerations, environmental factors, analysis of the environmental theory, assumptions of florence nightingale’s theory, recommended resources, external links, further reading, biography of florence nightingale.

Florence Nightingale ( 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a nurse who contributed to developing and shaping the modern nursing practice and has set examples for nurses who are standards for today’s profession. Nightingale is the first nurse theorist well-known for developing the Environmental Theory that revolutionized nursing practices to create sanitary conditions for patients to get care. She is recognized as the founder of modern nursing. During the Crimean War, she tended to wounded soldiers at night and was known as “ The Lady with the Lamp .” 

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Nightingale, Italy. She was the younger of two children. Her British family belonged to elite social circles. Her father, William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy landowner who had inherited two estates—one at Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, and the other in Hampshire, Embley Park Nightingale was 5 years old.

Her mother, Frances Nightingale, hailed from a family of merchants and took pride in socializing with prominent social standing people. Despite her mother’s interest in social climbing, Nightingale herself was reportedly awkward in social situations. She preferred to avoid being the center of attention whenever possible. Strong-willed, Nightingale often butted heads with her mother, whom she viewed as overly controlling. Still, like many daughters, she was eager to please her mother. “I think I am got something more good-natured and complying,” Nightingale wrote in her own defense concerning the mother-daughter relationship.

Florence Nightingale was raised on the family estate at Lea Hurst, where her father provided her with a classical education, including German, French, and Italian studies. As for being homeschooled by her parents and tutors, Nightingale gained excellence in Mathematics.

Nightingale was active in philanthropy from a very young age, ministering to the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate. At seventeen, she decided to dedicate her life to medical care for the sick resulting in a lifetime commitment to speak out, educate, overhaul and sanitize the appalling health care conditions in England.

Despite her parents’ objections, Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student in 1844 at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserswerth, Germany.

Only announcing her decision to enter the field in 1844, following her desire to be a nurse , was not easy for Florence Nightingale. Her mother and sister were against her chosen career, but Nightingale stood strong and worked hard to learn more about her craft despite society’s expectation that she become a wife and mother.

As a woman, Nightingale was beautiful and charming that made every man like her. However, she rejected a suitor, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, because she feared that entertaining men would interfere with the process. The income given to her by her father during this time allowed her to pursue her career and still live comfortably. Though Nightingale had several important friendships with women, including correspondence with an Irish nun named Sister Mary Clare Moore, she had little respect for women in general and preferred friendships with powerful men.

Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory defined Nursing as “the act of utilizing the patient’s environment to assist him in his recovery.”

It involves the nurse’s initiative to configure environmental settings appropriate for the gradual restoration of the patient’s health and that external factors associated with the patient’s surroundings affect the life or biologic and physiologic processes and his development.

She identified 5 environmental factors: fresh air , pure water , efficient drainage , cleanliness or sanitation, and light or direct sunlight .

Based on her observations in the Crimea, Florence Nightingale wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army , an 830-page report analyzing her experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals operating under poor conditions. The book would spark a total restructuring of the War Office’s administrative department, including establishing a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857.

In 1860, her best-authored works were published, “Notes on Nursing,” outlining nursing principles. It is still in print today with translation in many foreign languages. In all, she had published some 200 books, reports, and pamphlets. Using the money she got from the British government, she funded St. Thomas’ Hospital’s establishment, and within it, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses.

In the 1870s, Nightingale mentored Linda Richards , “America’s first trained nurse,” and enabled her to return to the USA with adequate training and knowledge to establish high-quality nursing schools. Linda Richards went on to become a great nursing pioneer in the USA and Japan.

In the early 1880s, Nightingale wrote an article for a textbook in which she advocated strict precautions designed, she said, to kill germs. Nightingale’s work served as an inspiration for nurses in the American Civil War. The Union government approached her for advice in organizing field medicine. Although her ideas met official resistance, they inspired the volunteer body of the United States Sanitary Commission.

Appointments

In 1853, Florence Nightingale accepted the superintendent’s position at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London. She held this position until October 1854.

In 1854, Britain was involved in the war against the Russians (Crimean War). British battlefield medical facilities were deplorable, prompting Minister at War Sidney Herbert to appoint Nightingale to oversee the wounded’s care. She arrived in Constantinople, Turkey, with a company of 38 nurses. The introduction of female nurses in military hospitals was a major success. Sanitary conditions were improved while nurses worked as capable assistants to physicians and raised the British soldier’s morale by acting as bankers, sending the injured man’s wages home, wrote letters to their families, and read to the wounded.

The Crimean War began, and soon reports in the newspapers described the desperate lack of proper medical facilities for wounded British soldiers at the front. Sidney Herbert, the war minister, already knew Nightingale and asked her to oversee a team of nurses in Turkey’s military hospitals. In 1854 she led an expedition of 38 women to take over the management of the barrack hospital at Scutari, where she observed the disastrous sanitary conditions.

She returned to England in 1856. In 1860, she established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Once the nurses were trained, they were sent to hospitals all over Britain, where they introduced the ideas they had learned and established nursing training on the Nightingale model.

England has given Florence Nightingale numerous awards and honors.

Nightingale became known as “The Lady with the Lamp.” During the Crimean War, she initially made her rounds on horseback and at night used an oil lamp to light her way, then reverted to a mule cart and finally a carriage with a hood and curtains. Nightingale remained at Scutari for a year and a half. In the summer of 1856, she left once the Crimean conflict was resolved and returned to her childhood home at Lea Hurst. To her surprise, she was met with a hero’s welcome, which the humble nurse did her best to avoid.

The Queen rewarded Nightingale’s work by presenting her with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the “Nightingale Jewel” and by granting her a prize of $250,000 from the British government.

In 1883, Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria. In 1904, she was appointed a Lady of Grace of St John’s Order (LGStJ) . In 1907, she became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit . In the following year, she was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London.

Despite being known as the heroine of the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale fell ill in August 1910. She seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. However, she developed an array of troubling symptoms a week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12, 1910. She died unexpectedly at 2 pm the following day, Saturday, August 13, at her home in London. She left a large body of work, including several hundred previously unpublished notes.

Usually, well-known people with great contributions are offered national funerals, but Nightingale had expressed the desire that her funeral is a quiet and modest affair.

Respecting her last wishes, her relatives turned down a national funeral, and the “Lady with the Lamp” was laid to rest in her family’s plot at St. Margaret’s Church, East Wellow, in Hampshire, England.

In honor of the life and career of the “Angel of the Crimea,” the Florence Nightingale Museum sits at the site of the original Nightingale Training School for Nurses, which houses more than 2,000 artifacts. And up to this day, the name “Florence Nightingale” is universally recognized and known as the pioneer of modern nursing.

Florence Nightingale has a memorial in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a formal memorial service was held. There is a Florence Nightingale Museum located at St. Thomas Hospital in London, where she founded the nursing school. The US Navy launched a namesake troop transport during World War II, “USS Florence Nightingale,” which served gallantly during the course of the war, receiving four battle stars.

In addition to the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery’s continued operation at King’s College London, The Nightingale Building in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Southampton is also named after her.

Furthermore, four hospitals in Istanbul are named after Nightingale: F. N. Hastanesi in Şişli (the biggest private hospital in Turkey), Metropolitan F.N. Hastanesi in Gayrettepe, Avrupa F.N. Hastanesi in Mecidiyeköy, and Kızıltoprak F.N. Hastanesi in Kadiköy, all belonging to the Turkish Cardiology Foundation.

Florence Nightingale’s voice was saved in a phonograph recording from 1890 preserved in the British Library Sound Archive. The recording is in aid of the Light Brigade Relief Fund and says: “When I am no longer even a memory , just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safely to shore. Florence Nightingale.”

Many exhibits and artifacts are displayed and a bit of folklore with an exhibit featuring the preserved owl Athena, her little pet and companion who lived in her pocket. With America’s first female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell opened the Women’s Medical College.

The photos above were taken by Luca Borghi in August 2011, courtesy of the Florence Nightingale Museum.

In 1912, the Red Cross’s International Committee instituted the Florence Nightingale Medal , awarded every two years to nurses or nursing aides for outstanding service.

The International Nurses Day and International CFS Awareness Day are celebrated on her birthday each year.

Nightingale’s Environmental Theory

The  Environmental Theory by Florence Nightingale defined Nursing as “the act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery.” It involves the nurse’s initiative to configure environmental settings appropriate for the gradual restoration of the patient’s health and that external factors associated with the patient’s surroundings affect the life or biologic and physiologic processes and his development. Nightingale discussed the Environmental Theory in her book Notes on Nursing: What it is, What it is Not.  She is considered the first theorist in nursing and paved the way in the foundation of the nursing profession we know today.

Major Concepts of Florence Nightingales Theory

The major concepts of Florence Nightingale’s Theory are:

“What nursing has to do… is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him” (Nightingale, 1859/1992)

Nightingale stated that nursing “ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet – all at the least expense of vital power to the patient.” She reflected the art of nursing in her statement that “the art of nursing, as now practiced, seems to be expressly constituted to unmake what God had made disease to be, viz., a reparative process.”

Human beings are not defined by Nightingale specifically. They are defined in relation to their environment and the impact of the environment upon them.

Nightingale stresses the physical environment in her writing. In her theory, Nightingale’s writings reflect a community health model in which all that surrounds human beings is considered concerning their health state.

Nightingale (1859/1992) did not define health specifically. She stated, “We know nothing of health, the positive of which pathology is negative, except for the observation and experience. Given her definition that the art of nursing is to “unmake what God had made disease,” then the goal of all nursing activities should be client health.

She believed that nursing should provide care to the healthy and the ill and discussed health promotion as an activity in which nurses should engage.

Subconcepts of the Environmental Theory

The following are the subconcepts of Florence Nightingale’s theory:

“Badly constructed houses do for the healthy what badly constructed hospitals do for the sick. Once ensure that the air is stagnant and sickness is certain to follow.”

“Keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air, without chilling him.”

Nightingale believed that the person who repeatedly breathed his or her own air would become sick or remain sick. She was very concerned about “noxious air” or “effluvia” and foul odors from excrement. She also criticized “fumigations,” for she believed that the offensive source, not the smell , must be removed.

Nightingale also stressed the importance of room temperature. The patient should not be too warm or too cold. The temperature could be controlled by an appropriate balance between burning fires and ventilation from windows.

Nightingale believed that second to fresh air, the sick needed light. She noted that direct sunlight was what patients wanted.

She stated that patients should never be “waked intentionally” or accidentally during the first part of sleep . She asserted that whispered or long conversations about patients are thoughtless and cruel. She viewed unnecessary noise, including noise from the female dress, as cruel and irritating to the patient.

She discussed the need for color and form changes, including bringing the patient brightly colored flowers or plants. She also advocated rotating 10 or 12 paintings and engravings each day, week, or month to provide variety for the patient. Nightingale also advocated reading, needlework, writing, and cleaning to relieve the sick of boredom.

Nightingale noted that an adult in health exhales about three pints of moisture through the lungs and skin in a 24-hour period. This organic matter enters the sheets and stays there unless the bedding is changed and aired frequently.

She believed that the bed should be placed in the lightest part of the room and placed so the patient could see out of a window. She also reminded the caregiver never to lean against, sit upon, or unnecessarily shake the patient’s bed.

“Just as it is necessary to renew the air around a sick person frequently to carry off morbid effluvia from the lungs and skin, by maintaining free ventilation, so it is necessary to keep pores of the skin free from all obstructing excretions.”

“Every nurse ought to wash her hands very frequently during the day.”

Nightingale noted in her Environmental Theory that individuals desire different foods at different times of the day and that frequent small servings may be more beneficial to the patient than a large breakfast or dinner. She urged that no business be done with patients while they are eating because this was a distraction.

Florence Nightingale wrote in her Environmental Theory that to falsely cheer the sick by making light of their illness and its danger is not helpful. She encouraged the nurse to heed what is being said by visitors, believing that sick persons should hear the good news that would help them become healthier.

Nightingale supported the importance of looking beyond the individual to the social environment in which they lived.

In Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory, she identified five (5) environmental factors: fresh air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness or sanitation, and light or direct sunlight.

• Pure fresh air – “to keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air without chilling him.”
• Pure water – “well water of a very impure kind is used for domestic purposes. And when the epidemic disease shows itself, persons using such water are almost sure to suffer.”
• Effective drainage – “all the while the sewer may be nothing but a laboratory from which epidemic disease and ill health are being installed into the house.”
• Cleanliness – “the greater part of nursing consists in preserving cleanliness.”
• Light (especially direct sunlight) – “the usefulness of light in treating disease is very important.”

The factors posed great significance during Nightingale’s time when health institutions had poor sanitation, and health workers had little education and training and were frequently incompetent and unreliable in attending to the patients’ needs.

Also emphasized in her environmental theory is providing a quiet or noise-free and warm environment, attending to patient’s dietary needs by assessment , documentation of time of food intake, and evaluating its effects on the patient.

Deficiencies in these five factors produce illness or lack of health, but the body could repair itself with a nurturing environment.

In the era that we are in today, we are faced with environmental conditions beyond what ought to be natural and nurturing. Some of the global environmental issues we have now are global warming, nuclear radiation threats, human-made environmental calamities, and pollution. From these occurrences, Nightingale’s model seemed to be ideal. Her concept of providing fresh air to patients is in question with today’s industrialization effects.

In addition to the analysis of the concept of ventilation, it is not always beneficial for all clients to have fresh air. Natural air has its impurities which in turn may infect open wounds and drainages such as in burns .

With the idea of providing light, the light emitted by the sun today is proven to be harmful already because of the destruction of the Earth’s ozone layer. Exposing the patient constantly to direct sunlight may be more destructive to the patient’s betterment than beneficial.

A healthy environment indeed heals, as Nightingale stated. Still, the question now is how our environment would remain healthy amidst the negative effects of the progress of technology and industrialization.

Since the applicability of some of the concepts to specific situations today is non-feasible, this theory’s development is utterly needed to accommodate the changes in the environment that we currently have. Still, above all this, it is very clear that Nightingale’s Environmental Theory is superb as a starting point of our profession’s progression and catalyzed nursing improvement.

The assumptions of Florence Nightingale in her Environmental Theory are as follows:

• Florence Nightingale believed that five points were essential in achieving a healthful house: “pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness, and light.”
• A healthy environment is essential for healing. She stated that “nature alone cures.”
• Nurses must make accurate observations of their patients and report the state of the patient to the physician in an orderly manner.
• Nursing is an art, whereas medicine is a science. Nurses are to be loyal to the medical plan but not servile.

Florence Nightingale’s language to write her books was cultured and flowing, logical in format, and elegant in style. Nightingale’s Environmental Theory has broad applicability to the practitioner. Her model can be applied in most complex hospital intensive care environments, the home, a worksite, or the community. Reading Nightingale’s Environmental Theory raises consciousness in the nurse about how the environment influences client outcomes.

In Nightingale’s Environmental Theory, there is scant information on the psychosocial environment compared to the physical environment. The application of her concepts in the twentieth century is in question.

The Environmental Theory of Nursing is a patient-care theory. It focuses on altering the patient’s environment to affect change in his or her health. Caring for the patient is of more importance than the nursing process , the relationship between patient and nurse, or the individual nurse.

In this way, the model must be adapted to fit the needs of individual patients. The environmental factors affect different patients unique to their situations and illnesses. The nurse must address these factors on a case-by-case basis to make sure the factors are altered to best care for an individual patient and his or her needs.

Recommended books and resources to learn more about nursing theory:

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• Nursing Theorists and Their Work (10th Edition) by Alligood Nursing Theorists and Their Work, 10th Edition provides a clear, in-depth look at nursing theories of historical and international significance. Each chapter presents a key nursing theory or philosophy, showing how systematic theoretical evidence can enhance decision making, professionalism, and quality of care.
• Knowledge Development in Nursing: Theory and Process (11th Edition) Use the five patterns of knowing to help you develop sound clinical judgment. This edition reflects the latest thinking in nursing knowledge development and adds emphasis to real-world application. The content in this edition aligns with the new 2021 AACN Essentials for Nursing Education.
• Nursing Knowledge and Theory Innovation, Second Edition: Advancing the Science of Practice (2nd Edition) This text for graduate-level nursing students focuses on the science and philosophy of nursing knowledge development. It is distinguished by its focus on practical applications of theory for scholarly, evidence-based approaches. The second edition features important updates and a reorganization of information to better highlight the roles of theory and major philosophical perspectives.
• Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice (5th Edition) The only nursing research and theory book with primary works by the original theorists. Explore the historical and contemporary theories that are the foundation of nursing practice today. The 5th Edition, continues to meet the needs of today’s students with an expanded focus on the middle range theories and practice models.
• Strategies for Theory Construction in Nursing (6th Edition) The clearest, most useful introduction to theory development methods. Reflecting vast changes in nursing practice, it covers advances both in theory development and in strategies for concept, statement, and theory development. It also builds further connections between nursing theory and evidence-based practice.
• Middle Range Theory for Nursing (4th Edition) This nursing book’s ability to break down complex ideas is part of what made this book a three-time recipient of the AJN Book of the Year award. This edition includes five completely new chapters of content essential for nursing books. New exemplars linking middle range theory to advanced nursing practice make it even more useful and expand the content to make it better.
• Nursing Research: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice This book offers balanced coverage of both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. This edition features new content on trending topics, including the Next-Generation NCLEX® Exam (NGN).
• Nursing Research (11th Edition) AJN award-winning authors Denise Polit and Cheryl Beck detail the latest methodologic innovations in nursing, medicine, and the social sciences. The updated 11th Edition adds two new chapters designed to help students ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of research methods. Extensively revised content throughout strengthens students’ ability to locate and rank clinical evidence.

Recommended site resources related to nursing theory:

• Nursing Theories and Theorists: The Definitive Guide for Nurses MUST READ! In this guide for nursing theories, we aim to help you understand what comprises a nursing theory and its importance, purpose, history, types or classifications, and give you an overview through summaries of selected nursing theories.

Other resources related to nursing theory:

• Betty Neuman: Neuman Systems Model
• Dorothea Orem: Self-Care Deficit Theory
• Dorothy Johnson: Behavioral System Model
• Faye Abdellah: 21 Nursing Problems Theory
• Hildegard Peplau: Interpersonal Relations Theory
• Ida Jean Orlando: Deliberative Nursing Process Theory
• Imogene King: Theory of Goal Attainment
• Jean Watson: Theory of Human Caring
• Lydia Hall: Care, Cure, Core Nursing Theory
• Madeleine Leininger: Transcultural Nursing Theory
• Martha Rogers: Science of Unitary Human Beings
• Myra Estrin Levine: The Conservation Model of Nursing
• Nola Pender: Health Promotion Model
• Sister Callista Roy: Adaptation Model of Nursing
• Virginia Henderson: Nursing Need Theory

The following are the references and sources used for this guide:

• Florence Nightingale: Part I. Strachey, Lytton. 1918. Eminent Victorians. (n.d.). Florence Nightingale: Part I. Strachey, Lytton. 1918. Eminent Victorians. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from https://www.bartleby.com/189/201.html
• Florence Nightingale and Lynn McDonald (Editor) (2010). “An introduction to Vol 14”. Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War.  Wilfrid Laurier University Press . ISBN   0889204691 .
• Himetop. (n.d.).  Florence Nightingale Museum – . Retrieved July 31, 2014, from https://himetop.wikidot.com/florence-nightingale-museum
• Cohen, I. B. (1984). Florence Nightingale. Scientific American ,  250 (3), 128-137. [ Link ]
• Nursing Theory and Conceptual Framework, Fundamentals of Nursing: Human Health and Function, Ruth F. Craven and Constance J. Hirnle, 2003, pp.56
• The Nature of Nursing, Fundamentals of Nursing: Concepts, Process, and Practice, Second Edition, Barbara Kozier, Glenora Erb, Audrey Berman, Shirlee Snyder, 2004, p.38
• Nightingale, F. (1860/1957/1969). Notes on nursing: What it is and what it is not. In McEwen, M. and Wills, E. (Ed.).  Theoretical basis for nursing.  USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
• Nightingale, F. (1992). Notes on nursing: What it is and what it is not. (Com. ed.). (Original publication 1859). In George, J. (Ed.). Nursing theories: the base for professional nursing practice.  Norwalk, Connecticut: Appleton & Lange.
• Florence Nightingale Foundation
• Collection of Letters of Florence Nightingale
• Papers of Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910
• Baly, Monica and E. H. C. G. Matthew. “Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011
• Bostridge, Mark (2008). Florence Nightingale. The Woman and Her Legend. Viking (2008); Penguin (2009). US title Florence Nightingale. The Making of an Icon. Farrar Straus (2008).
• Rees, Joan. Women on the Nile: Writings of Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, and Amelia Edwards. Rubicon Press: 1995, 2008

Originally published on August 4, 2014. Biography was written by Wayne, G. 

With contributions by Wayne, G., Ramirez, Q., Vera, M.

3 thoughts on “Florence Nightingale: Environmental Theory”

God bless Florence Nightingale for her good work towards nursing. I am proud to be a nurse!

Thanks, Florence Nightingale, for curing human lives it encourages me to become a good professional nurse.

I really like this

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