Florence Nightingale. The lady with the lamp, the founder of nursing, the angel of mercy, a powerful feminist, a saint—her legend has become myth is some cases, often marring the truth as to who Florence Nightingale really was.
The Crimean War was a rather messy affair (although the same can be said of all wars), between Turkey and Russia. England got involved on the side of the Turks because of the Russian threat to control the Dardanelles which in turn, might create problems with England’s shipping through the Mediterranean. There are a number of websites which detail this war, but it is sufficient to say that this was just another one of those battlegrounds where blind patriotism got in the way of common sense. Tennyson’s poem about the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade took place in Crimea.
Much of England’s problems had to do with the ineptness of the British command. Compared to death by starvation and cholera, very few British soldiers actually died at the hands of their enemy. While the French had nursing sisters to care for the wounded, the British soldiers had no one. Death from infection was about 40%. Outraged by this travesty, the British sent a team of nurses to the Crimea to care for the injured. Their leader was Florence Nightingale.
Nightingale was born into a very wealthy family, and was educated by her father. She was a brilliant student, but stifled by what was the designated place in life for a well born women. She desired to do something useful with her life, and in time, believed that God called her to become a nurse. In early Victorian England, nursing was not a profession, nor was it anything that a lady would even think of doing. But she persevered, and went off to train in Germany for three months, after which time she took a position as superintendent as a “hospital for gentle ladies.”
Not long afterwards, Nightingale went to the Crimea, where she and her nurses scrubbed, battled with patriarchy who felt that women had no place there, and eventually reduced the death toll to around 2%. Amazing what a little TLC and cleanliness can do. When she returned to England she was greeted as a hero, and from there, she went on to reform healthcare.
