Florence Nightingale
Personal Information
Born: 1820
Died: 1910
Country of Birth: Italy
Nationality: Great Britain
Ethnicity: White
Education
home schooled by father & self taught; 4 months of nurse training at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine
" "Every day sanitary knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It is recognised as the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have""
— Florence Nightingale
Professional Life
Field of Study: Nursing
Institution/Corporation: Kings college London
Degrees & Memberships: Member: Royal Statistical Society (1859), Honorary Member American Statistical Academy (1874)
Awards & Achievements
Awards: 1883, Royal Red Cross; 1907, Order of Merit; 1904, Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John (LGStJ); see Wikipedia entry for an extensive list of buildings, hospitals ships, & other items named for her
Achievements: in recognition of her contributions to nursing, all new nurses take the Nightingale Pledge (similar to the Hippocratic Oath) at their pinning ceremony & the Florence Nightingale Medal is the highest international honor in nursing; her birthday, May 12, is celebrated as National Nursing Day
Known as "The Lady With the Lamp"because she would visit the sick & wounded at Scutari during the Crimean War at night holding a lantern
Trained her nurses in sanitizing, dropping the mortality rate at Scutari from 40% to 2%
Contracted a disease (likely brucellosis from drinking contaminated milk) during the Crimean War in 1855; there was no cure & it left her in pain for the remainder of her life
1860, established the 1st secular training school for nurses
Her social reforms included: improving health care for all sections of British society, advocating for better hunger relief in India, helping abolish prostitution laws that were harsh for women, & expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce
Was a pioneer in statistics & presented her analysis in graphical form
Was a founder of the modern nursing profession
All new nurses take the Nightingale Pledge