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Florence NightingaleA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Nightingale was born in 1820 and died at the age of 90 in 1910. Renowned for her contributions to the field of nursing, she’s widely considered the founder of modern nursing, as many of her observations and fundamental principles became the bedrock of modern healthcare, especially concerning sanitation and holistic care. Born in Florence, Italy to a wealthy family, she found herself in conflict with her parents when she revealed her desire to go into nursing (as they had different hopes for her); as a woman in the Victorian age, she was expected to simply marry into a family of high standing and take up various social duties. Rejecting this path, she became a nursing student in 1844 at age 24, eventually returning to London, where she worked in a hospital.
When the Crimean War broke out in 1853, Nightingale organized a group of nurses to tend to the sick, wounded, and dying. Discovering terrible conditions of disease and a great lack of sanitation, she began forming opinions about the art of nursing as she observed her surroundings and gained valuable experience. She implemented sanitary measures in the hospitals and camps where she worked and greatly reduced the number of sick and dying merely by tending to the basics of health. While serving as a nurse in several capacities, she began writing down her observations about the proper manner of running hospitals, rehabilitation camps, and other sites where the sick and wounded were nursed back to health.
In 1860 she received funding with which she founded St. Thomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses, which aimed to provide top-level health and recovery services and train new recruits in the art of nursing according to Nightingale’s new method. Largely because of her efforts, nursing came to be seen as an honorable vocation of service and philanthropy rather than a job taken by members of the lower class. In a cruel twist of fate, Nightingale herself became sick and bedridden at age 38 with “Crimean fever” and spent the rest of her life in this state. At age 90, she passed away in her London home, leaving a legacy that continued to influence generations of the healthcare community.