FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE Return
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1820-1910
Quotes from Florence Nightingale: "Women never have a half-hour in all their lives (excepting before or after anybody is up in the house) that they can call their own, without fear of offending or of hurting someone. Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have 'no time in the day to themselves.'" 1852 "And so is the world put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts (which were meant, not for selfish gratification, but for the improvement of that world) to conventionality." 1852 "It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm." 1859 "For what is Mysticism? Is it not the attempt to draw near to God, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within'? Heaven is neither a place nor a time." 1873 "I stand at the altar of the murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause." 1856 "Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last." 1857 "No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this -- 'devoted and obedient.' This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman." 1859 "I can stand out the war with any man." "You ask me why I do not write something. . . . I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results." Quotes selected by Jone Johnson |
Florence Nightingale, the daughter of the wealthy landowner, William Nightingale of Embly Park, Hampshire,
was born in 1820. Her father was a Unitarian and a Whig who was involved in the anti-slavery movement. As a child,
Florence was very close to her father, who without a son, treated her as his friend and companion. At seventeen
she felt herself to be called by God to some unnamed great cause. Florence's mother, Fanny Nightingale, also came from a staunch Unitarian family. Fanny was a domineering woman who was primarily concerned with finding her daughter a good husband. She was therefore upset by Florence's decision to reject Lord Houghton's offer of marriage. Florence refused to marry several suitors, and at the age of twenty-five told her parents she wanted to become a nurse. Her parents were totally opposed to the idea as nursing was associated with working class women. It was not until Lord Houghton married someone else in 1851 that Florence was given permission to train as a nurse. Florence, now thirty-one, went to work at Kaiserworth Hospital in Germany. Two years later she was appointed resident lady superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in Harley Street, London. The following year, Nightingale was given permission to take a group of thirty-eight nurses to look after British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War. Nightingale found the conditions in the army hospital in Scutari appalling. The men were kept in rooms without blankets or decent food. Unwashed, they were still wearing their army uniforms, "stiff with dirt and gore". In these conditions, it was not surprising that in army hospitals, war wounds only accounted for one death in six. Diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery were the main reasons why the death-rate was so high amongst wounded soldiers. Military officers and doctors objected to Nightingale's views on reforming military hospitals. They interpreted her comments as an attack on their and she was made to feel unwelcome. |
| Nightingale received very little help from the military until she used her contacts at The Times to
report details of the way that the British Army treated its wounded soldiers. Nightingale was given the task of
organising the barracks hospital after the battle of Inkerman and by improving the quality of the sanitation she
was able to dramatically reduce the death-rate of her patients. In 1856 Florence Nightingale returned to England as a national heroine. She had been deeply shocked by the lack of hygiene and elementary care that the men received in the British Army. Nightingale therefore decided to begin a campaign to improve the quality of of nursing in military hospitals. She gave evidence to the 1857 Sanitary Commission that eventually resulted in the formation of the Army Medical College. To spread her opinions on reform, Nightingale published two books, Notes on Hospital (1859) and Notes on Nursing (1859). With the support of wealthy friends and The Times, Nightingale was able to raise £59,000 to improve the quality of nursing. In 1860, she used this money to found the Nightingale School & Home for Nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital. She also became involved in the training of nurses for work in the workhouses that had been established as a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. Nightingale held strong opinions on women's rights. In her book Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truths (1859) she argued strongly for the removal of restrictions that prevented women having careers. This book was read by John Stuart Mill, and influenced his book on women's rights, The Subjection of Women (1869). Nightingale was also strongly opposed to the passing of the Contagious Diseases Act. However, Nightingale was unwilling to become involved in the campaign led by Josephine Butler to get this legislation repealed. Nightingale preferred working behind the scenes to get laws changed and disapproved of women making speeches in public. Women such as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake were disappointed by Nightingale's lack of support for women's doctors. Nightingale had doubts at first about the wisdom of this campaign and argued that it was more important to have better trained nurses than women doctors. In later life Florence Nightingale suffered from poor health and in 1895 she went blind, and soon afterwards, the loss of other faculties meant she had to receive full-time nursing. Although a complete invalid she lived another fifteen years before her death in 1910. For more information go to famous uu's site |
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