Woman of the Week – Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was a social reformer, statistician and likely most known as the founder of modern nursing. Her work is going to be showcased in an upcoming film played by Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss.

Nightingale was a trailblazer in nursing who greatly affected 19th- and 20th-century policies around proper health care. She was known for her night rounds to aid the wounded, establishing her image as the 'Lady with the Lamp.'

She was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy, and yes, the city inspired her parents’ name choice for the child. The younger of two daughters, Nightingale was part of an affluent British clan that belonged to elite social circles. She was recalled as a strong-willed child who often butted heads with people at the demure gatherings her family attended. She was a caring person though, and at an early age learned the value of helping others.

As a child, Nightingale was active in philanthropy, caring for the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate. Nightingale eventually concluded that nursing was her calling; she believed the vocation to be her divine purpose.

Her parents were not happy to learn that this is how she wanted to spend her life. During the Victorian Era, English women had almost no property rights. A young lady of Nightingale's social stature was expected to marry wealthy to ensure her class standing—not take up a job that was viewed by the upper social classes as lowly menial labor.

She pursed nursing, despite her parent’s refusal, by enrolling at Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany. After finishing school, she took a nursing job in a Harley Street hospital for ailing governesses. Her performance there impressed her boss so much that she was promoted to superintendent. Nightingale also volunteered at a Middlesex hospital around this time, grappling with a cholera outbreak and unsanitary conditions conducive to the rapid spread of the disease. Nightingale made it her mission to improve hygiene practices, significantly lowering the death rate at the hospital in the process.

The Crimean War broke out in 1853. At the time, there were no female nurses stationed at hospitals in the Crimea. After the Battle of Alma, England was in an uproar about the neglect of their ill and injured soldiers. The hospitals were greatly understaffed and care was so poor that many were outraged.

Nightingale saw this as an opportunity, but she was not prepared for what was to come. The hospital sat on top of a large cesspool, which contaminated the water and the building itself. Patients lay in their own excrement on stretchers strewn throughout the hallways while rodents and bugs scurried by.

Basic supplies like bandages and soap were in short supply. Even water was rationed. More soldiers were dying from illnesses caught and transmitted while in the hospital than were dying in battle.

She procured hundreds of scrub brushes and asked the least sick patients to scrub the inside of the hospital from floor to ceiling. Nightingale herself spent every waking minute caring for the soldiers. In the evenings she moved through the dark hallways carrying a lamp while making her rounds. The soldiers took to calling her "the Lady with the Lamp." Others simply called her "the Angel of the Crimea." Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds.

Based on her observations during the Crimea War, Nightingale wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army, a massive report published in 1858 analyzing her experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals. Her research sparked a total restructuring of the War Office's administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857. Nightingale was also noted for her statistician skills, creating coxcomb pie charts on patient mortality in Scutari that would influence the direction of medical epidemiology.

While in Crimea, she contracted the bacterial infection brucellosis, also known as Crimean fever. She grew so sick that by 38 she was homebound and spent most of her time bedridden. She would never fully recover, though she lived until 90. From her bed, she continued to write about her nursing career and remained dedicated to helping alleviate patients from suffering. She was consulted during the Civil War on how to keep field hospitals in good shape.