Florence Nightingale, the daughter of the wealthy landowner, William Edward Nightingale and Frances ("Fanny") Nightingale nee Smith, was born in Florence, Italy, on 12th May, 1820 and was named after the city of her birth. As a child, Florence was very close to her father, who, without a son, treated her as his friend and companion. He took responsibility for her education and taught her Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian history, philosophy and mathematics.
As a youngster, Nightingale was forced, especially by her mother, to do marriage and have family life. But she deserted Lord Houghton's offer of marriage. Florence refused to marry several suitors, and at the age of twenty-five told her parents she wanted to become a nurse. Her parents were totally opposed to the idea as nursing was associated with working class women. Florence's desire to have a career in medicine was reinforced when she met Elizabeth Blackwell at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Blackwell was the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the united States. Blackwell, who had to overcome considerable prejudice to achieve her ambition, encouraged her t keep trying and in 1851 Florence's father gave her permission to train as a nurse.
Florence, now thirty-one, went to Kaiserwerth, Germany where she studied to become nurse at the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses. Two years later she was appointed resident lady superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in Harley Street, London.
In 1853, Crimean War began and so many soldiers died due to the lack of proper care on wounds. In 1854, the British press began reporting that soldiers wounded in the Crimean War were being poorly cared for in deplorable conditions. Nightingale recruited and equipped a group of nurses and went off to Turkey to help. Her arrival was not celebrated by the surgeons there, who resented the interference of a woman. Undaunted, she worked tirelessly to improve conditions in the hospital. Her changes revolutionized British military medical care, increasing standards for sanitation and nutrition and dramatically lowering mortality rates. While visiting the front lines, she became ill and never really recovered.
She commonly used to visit the wounded even in night with a lamp on her hand. She roamed here and there and was present to each soldier. But only few of the soldiers or officials knew about her. So, she was addressed by the lady with lamp. The same identity later became world wide which suggests her unselfish human service.
In 1856 Florence Nightingale returned to England as a national heroine. She had been deeply shocked by the lack of hygiene and elementary care that the men received in the British Army. Nightingale therefore decided to begin a campaign to improve the quality of nursing in military hospitals. In October, 1856, she had a long interview with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the following year gave evidence to the 1857 Sanitary Commission. This eventually resulted in the formation of the Army Medical College.
Nightingale held strong opinion on women's rights. In her book Suggestions for thought to Searchers after Religious Truths (1859) she argued strongly for the removal of restrictions that prevented women having careers. In 1859 she helped to establish the first Visiting Nurse association and in 1860, she established a school that became a model for modern nurses training. she was considered an expert on the scientific care of the sick and was asked by the United States for her advice on caring for the wounded soldiers of the Civil War. through correspondence and reports, she contained her influence throughout her last years. she was the first women to receive the British Order of Merit. In 1907 the International Conference of Red cross societies listed her as a pioneer of the Red Cross Movement.
Florence Nightingale is also credited with developing a form of the pie chart now known as the polar area diagram, or occasionally the Nightingale rose diagram, equivalent to a modern circular histogram to illustrate seasonal sources of patient mortality in the military field hospital she managed. In her later life Nightingale made a comprehensive statistical study of sanitation in Indian rural life and was the leading figure in the introduction of improved medical are and public health service in India. In 1859 Nightingale was elected the first female member of the Royal Statistical society and she later became an honorary member of the American Statistical Association.
Florence Nightingale, who was known by the British soldiers in the Crimea as the "lady with the lamp" because of the late hours that she worked tending to the sick and wounded, is remembered today as a symbol of selfless caring and tireless service. In later life Florence Nightingale suffered from poor health and in 1859 went blind. soon afterwards, the loss of other faculties meant she had to receive full-time nursing. Although a complete invalid she lived another fifteen years before her death in London on 13th August, 1910.
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