Florence Nightingale and who she was

Florence Nightingale was an English pioneer in statistics and the founder of modern-day nursing. She was a female social reformer who wanted to improve women’s rights to be like men’s rights. She was noticed when she was a manager and trained nurses in the Crimean War (1853-1856). She improved the healthcare in the country and improved hygiene as well as living styles. She became very well known during the Victorian era. Florence Nightingale was born 12^th of may 1820 in Florence, Italy and descended from a very wealthy and well connected British family. She tended to find herself in awkward social situations. Her mother however was a very outgoing, social person. Despite such a difference in personality, they sill had a descent bond.William Shore Nightingale, who was her father was a wealthy land owner.

From a Young age Florence Nightingale was interested in philanthropy She helped the poor  people in the village that she lived beside. This experience at a young age made her want to pursue a career in nursing, and when she was older, she decided to take it on as a job. When she expressed what she wanted to do, the parents, parents were not pleased and banned her from continuing. This was because for a person of Florence Nightingale’s social status, and she was a woman, the didn’t believe it was worth her trying and she should just get married.

When Florence Nightingale was seventeen years of age, she refused to get married to what was seen as a “suitable” and”well-respected” man who went by the name of Richard Mockton Milnes. Nightingale stated why she didn’t want to marry him. She said “saying that while he stimulated her intellectually and romantically, her “moral, active nature requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in this life.” Her drive and determination to be a nurse led her so far that in in 1844, Florence Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany.

In the early 1850s, Florence Nightingale returned to Londonderry and got a job in Middlesex as a nurse. Her skill impressed her employer so much that she was promoted to superintendent in only a year of the job. She was tested from the start of her promotion. With cholera spreading and the unsanitary life style of many made Florence Nightingale’s goal to educate and help others understand what was wrong in their lifestyle.

October 1853 and the Crimean war breaks out. The war between the British empire and Russian empire for Ottoman territory begins. Thousands of British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea, where supplies got smaller and there was a shortage. By 1854, no fewer than 18,000 soldiers had been admitted into military hospitals. as the one female nurses, that was a lack of medical care for the wounded and as the wounded group grew , the number of soldiers dwindled. Eventually Florence Nightingale received a letter from Sidney Herbert, requesting her to organize a group of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. So Florence Nightingale assembled a team of 34 nurses from different ethnicities. They got to work immediately and Florence would walk with a lamp to check on the soldiers thus earning the name “The Lamy With the Lamp”. Others simply called her “the Angel of Crimea.” Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds. Nightingale suddenly died at 2pm on August 13^th, 1910 in her house. She earned a Royal Red Cross in 1883, an Order of Merit in 1907 and Lady of Grace Of The Order Of St John in 1903. Her legacy will be remembered as she came from a rich background and till wanted to tend for the poor and she embraced ever ethnicity.