Life History of Florence Nightingale: Nurse and Social Advocate

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. She was a British social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. While she was still young, she was active in Philanthropy, ministering to the il and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate and by the time she was 16, it was clear to her that nursing was her calling, she believed it to be her divine purpose. When she told her parents that she wanted to become a nurse, her family wasn’t pleased because during this era, a young lady of Nightingale’s social stature was expected to marry a man of means, and to not take up a job that was viewed lowly menial labor by upper social classes.

Florence Nightingale got her Education from the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserswerth. She served as a nurse during the Crimean War, where she helped the wounded soldiers. She was known as “The Lady with the Lamp” after she had a habit of making rounds at night. While using her mathematical competency, she collected data and made calculations on mortality rate change as sanitary methods were incorporated in the medical facilities and it was soon pressed in all British military hospital. Her achievements during the war were exaggerated by the media at the time and later on her achievements were widely accepted. In 1860, she laid the foundation of professional nursing the the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas Hospital in London. This school was the first secular nursing school in the world, which is now part of King’s College London. There is a pledge in honour of her, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. The mission of the school was to train nurses to work in hospitals, to work with the poor and to teach.

This showed that the students that attend this school cared for people in their homes. She also set an example of compassion and commitment to patient care. She wasn’t just a nurse, she was also a prodigious and versatile writing. Most of her work was about spreading medical knowledge. She wrote in a language that was easy for people with poor literacy skills to understand. She helped popularise the graphical presentation of statistical data. Her writing included religion and mysticism. After her trainings in Germany and in France, she served as Superintendent at the Establishment for Gentlewomen during Illness in London.

On August 13, 1910, she died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 90 in her room at 10 South Street, Mayfair, London. She was buried in the graveyard at St. Margaret Church in East Wellow, Hampshire.