On This Day In History: ‘Lady With The Lamp’ – Florence Nightingale Was Born – On May 12, 1820

AncientPages.com - On May 12, 1820,' Florence Nightingale known as Lady with the Lamp' -was born.

She was a great person, widely acknowledged as the pioneer of modern nursing; she was also a proficient mathematician.

The Lady with the Lamp. Colored lithograph reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891.  Crimean War: Florence Nightingale with her lamp at a patient's bedside. More info - here

Nightingale was named after Florence, Italy, where her parents were temporary residents.

She grew up in Derbyshire, Hampshire, and London, where her father maintained homes. Nightingale received her education in the Classics, history, and mathematics; and was expected to marry a society gentleman.

But Nightingale was not interested in social climbing and socializing with people of prominent social standing. Unsatisfied with her life, she surprised her family by announcing that her mission was to nurse the sick. She graduated from The Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen. She entered the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses, an establishment for teaching poor but honest girls nursing skills.

When the Crimean War broke out, the public was shocked by reports of crowded and unsanitary conditions faced by wounded British troops in Turkey. Nightingale set off at once for Constantinople with a few close companions.

Florence Nightingale Statue, London Road, Derby. Image credit: Russ Hamer -  CC BY-SA 3.0

At the hospital at Scutari, Nightingale found the place infested with vermin. Her first request was 200 scrubbing brushes to wash the patients' clothes. She petitioned the Secretary of State for War to send more nurses, which he obliged did and placed Nightingale in charge.

Nightingale had to contend with the conditions and apathy of army officers and insubordination of junior nurses, many of whom had to be sent home for drunkenness or other bad behavior.

Nightingale was more an administrator and inspector than an active nurse.

She became known as the 'Lady of the Lamp' due to her frequent nighttime tours of the hospital with a Greek lamp.

After the end of the Crimean War, Nightingale took up the science of mathematics; she was seriously interested in epidemiology. She wanted to improve health care and invented the 'coxcomb,' a mathematical diagram that could help illustrate the causes of mortality. She also studied the sanitary conditions of India but never visited that country. In 1858, Nightingale was elected as the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society.

On her deathbed, Nightingale was offered the privilege of burial at Westminster Abbey, which she refused. She was placed in a modest tomb in St. Margaret's Churchyard, Whinwhistle Road, East Wellow, in Hampshire, England,

                                           ---  with the simple inscription 'F N.' ----

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