Florence Nightingale – The Nursing Angel
Florence Nightingale is regarded to be the pioneer in the study/documentation of the best nursing practices, and later on, establishing the first secular nursing school that heralded a whole new career of nursing which improved patient care drastically.
These words may not mean much to us as we take health care for granted today (if we can afford it). But there was a time during the middle of nineteenth century when wars were commonplace and health care of wounded soldiers left to untrained/unprofessional hands. That was when an angel called Florence Nightingale was attempting to create order among the chaos, then called medical practice.
Born into an affluent family, Florence Nightingale felt that nursing was her calling. Women in those times were not provided much formal education but her father believed that education was very important and tutored her on mathematics and statistics, among other subjects.
Her desire to become a nurse to treat wounded soldiers was more than just social service. Back then, nursing was unheard of and women in nursing was an impossibility. Braving the opposition from family and society, she started to learn the nursing practices by herself. She traveled extensively in order to serve and chose not to get married as she felt that marriage could interfere in her professional and spiritual calling of attending to the injured and uncared.
Florence Nightingale’s services rose to prominence during the Crimean war. She left with a group of 38 women volunteer nurses after the news of large number of unattended casualties were reported in London. Her life-long friend and politician Sidney Herbert was instrumental in facilitating Nightingale’s work in Crimea.
Florence Nightingale is said to have reduced the death rate of soldiers from 42% to 2% due to her health-care practices and improvements brought about in sanitary conditions and hygiene. Among other things, she was instrumental in bringing a sanitary commission that flushed out blocked sewers and improved ventilation in the hospital.
Later on, she found out that ten times more soldiers died due to cholera, dysentery, typhoid and other such infections than wounds sustained in the war. This convinced her that the improvements in personal hygiene/sanitary conditions were the main reason for the reduction in the number of deaths and she worked tirelessly for improving the living conditions of British soldiers elsewhere.
While still in Crimea, she was known as ‘The lady with the lamp’ as it was routine for her to check and attend to injured soldiers in the nights, even after all the medical fraternity had returned to their camps. When someone serves people without expecting anything in return, people are known to give generously. While she was still at work in the Ottoman empire, her work became famous at home and people donated generously to a fund in her name, which enabled her to establish a nursing school later on.
Her institution was the first secular nursing school solely aimed at developing the profession of nursing and creating more trained nurses. She then wrote a book called ‘Notes on Nursing’ that served as a valuable reference material for nursing school students and also became popular among the general public who were attending to sick people at home.
In the 1890’s, she mentored a person called Linda Richards who then became famous as America’s first trained nurse and went on to establish many nursing schools in the US and Japan. Florence Nightingale was the first woman in England to be awarded the Order of Merit, in recognition of her selfless service.
Perhaps her most important contribution to the society was her introduction of a formal training system and curriculum for nurses, which in-turn fostered the creation of the organized health-care system. There are a very few people who go beyond their comfort zones to relentlessly strive and work for improving the living conditions of others. She was a diamond among all such gems.
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Reference: Wikipedia article on Florence Nightingale. May 12, her birth anniversary, is celebrated as the International Nurses Day.
The lady with the lamp.. I remember reading about her during school days. Women like Terasa, Florence Nightingale are the ones to be remembered and read often. They are the ones who gave the new definition to charity and selflessness.
Wonderful post.. 🙂
I guess being passionate about what we do can make us want to undertake such selfless pursuits. A lot of us are afraid to follow our heart, but she did.
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i read about her during school and faintly remember but this post turned out to be quite informative !
I don’t remember having a lesson on her in my school curriculum. Wonder why?
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nice informative post
Thanks, SM.
I too remember reading about the Lady with the lamp in my school days. Thanks for refreshing the memories. I read about the Nurses’ day also. This is an apt tribute for their selfless service, D.I.
I wonder if I studied about her in school and forgot? Anyway, I am glad that I came across this personality while trying to do something totally unconnected!
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Never knew this much of history about her… Thank God for her efforts that organized health care was born…
I too was oblivious of her contribution. I knew her name, though.
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She sure is a shining diamond! Great detail of information DI!
A small sparkle added to the diamond, that’s all!
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A beautiful post on a beautiful (at heart) lady.
I always consider people who are beautiful at heart as ‘beautiful’. This beauty doesn’t go off, it’s permanent.
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WE use to have a story on her in school.
Thanks for telling it all over again …
Bikram’s
Interesting to see that so many people remember a lesson about her in their curriculum. Did I forget?
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cd u recommend any book for children.. my friends daughter wants to read abt her.. but we have been unable to get any book
I just referred to the Wikipedia to write this article. A simple search on flipkart.com brings so many books. Maybe you can look at one of them? But I am not aware of which one would be suitable for children.
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Very informative on “Lady with a Lamp”.
In PSUs we discuss freedom struggle movement and ancestral roots. I wonder why nurses and other selfless people’s involvement in freedom movement is not in agenda.
That’s right. There is a whole set of support staff behind the heroes and we often forget about them!
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We all (most of us) have heard of her. She indeed was/is THE lady with the lamp.
Thanks for posting this DI. Reminders of her are unfortunately needed to acknowledge her service always and draw inspiration from her, even an iota of it.
Allied health and paramedics are true heroes. recently, I had a training on first aid certification and realized (all over again) how we are at hospitals and how the first aiders are really trying so so hard out there to make that trip to the hospital happen.
Thanks again !
Oh, good to know that you did a training on first aid certification.
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You took me back to my classroom in 7th standard where I had my english lesson on this very lady.
Why remembering her now, all of a sudden? 🙂
You remember that this lesson was in 7th Std English book? My God, that takes some memory!
I don’t remember reading about her in my school! These days, post topics ideas somehow come to me, than me going after them! I was doing something totally unrelated when I chanced upon her profile in Wiki. That was the inspiration.
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I read about her in school and you totally refreshed my memory!
I did not get the update of this post 🙁
Your name is there in the list. You should have got the mail, but it could have landed in the spam folder. Next time when you log-in to your mail, locate the spam folder (left hand side, below inbox) and mark the message as ‘Not spam’. Then, you’ll start getting the messages in your inbox.
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Indeed and interesting info….
recently president of india presented national florence nightingale award to nurses
thanks for sharing
Oh, nice to know that we have an award like that in India.
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Me tooo….had a lesson on her in school :-).
Later on read a few books from the library on her.
Did u knw that she was a gifted mathematician & invented the Pie Chart????
As to why u dont remember the lesson…..u were probably busy line maroing the girl in the next bench 😀
Yes, I read about the invention of pie chart. Somehow missed putting it here. Did you remember it or did you research for this comment?
Oh, I don’t do line moroing any girl. Its the reverse. Girls do that to me 😛
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It was lovely reading about the great lady
It was good writing about her and knowing more about her, for me too.
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