Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1820. From the time she was a little girl she had a desire to care for the sick and would care for any ill family member or neighbor she could. When Florence was in her twenties, she felt that God was calling her to be a nurse. Her parents firmly refused her request, because, in her time nurses were untrained criminals, poor women, or both. It was not a profession for decent people! Nevertheless, she eventually got her way and after nine years of training, at the age of thirty-three, she began caring for the sick as a nurse.

During the Crimean War, she went onto the battlefield to tend the injured and wounded soldiers, giving them food and water and encouraging them. She was the first person to care for fallen soldiers. Without her help, they would have lain dying in their own blood without food or water for days. Even at night, she tirelessly cared for the soldiers in the field. She became known as the lady with the lamp because she carried one through the night to continue her nursing. She also went to a hospital in Turkey where she found the conditions nearly as bad as on the battlefield! Using her own money, she improved conditions there to the best of her ability.

Finally, she made hospitals safe and clean, created nursing training programs for other women, and changed the way people thought about nursing. Instead of nursing remaining an indecent and unrefined job, it became a highly trained and respected profession. Florence herself eventually became fatally ill. Soon after, on August 13, 1910, she died. Florence Nightingale was a truly selfless person who made a great impact on the medical world.