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Mattresses, walls, and floors were soaked with Nurses opened in 1860. The school was an inde-
human waste. Rats, lice, and maggots thrived in pendent educational institution financed by the
this filthy environment (Kalisch & Kalisch, 2004). Nightingale Fund. Fifteen probationers were
The nurses went to work.They set up a kitchen, admitted to the first class. Their training lasted a
rented a house and converted it into a laundry, and year. Although Nightingale was not an instructor at
hired soldiers’ wives to do the laundry. Money was the school, she was consulted about all of the
difficult to obtain, so Nightingale used the Times details of student selection, instruction, and organ-
relief fund and her own personal funds to purchase ization. The basic principles on which the
medical supplies, food, and equipment. After the Nightingale school was founded are the following:
hospital had been cleaned and organized,she began
1. Nurses should be trained technically in schools
to set up social services for the soldiers.
organized for that purpose.
Nightingale rarely slept. She spent hours giving
2. Nurses should come from homes that are of
nursing care, wrote letters to families, prepared
good moral standing.
requests for more supplies, and reported to London
on the conditions she had found and improved. Her book, Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What
At night, she made rounds accompanied by an It Is Not, established the fundamental principles
11-year-old boy who held her lamp when she sat by of nursing. The following is an example of her
a dying soldier or assisted during emergency sur- writing:
gery. This is how she earned the title “The Lady
On What Nursing Ought To Do
with the Lamp” from the poet Longfellow (1868).
I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has
The physicians and army officers resented the
been limited to signify little more than the admin-
nurses despite their strenuous efforts and enormous
istration of medicines and the application of poul-
accomplishments. They regarded the nurses as
tices. It ought to signify the proper use of air, light,
intruders who interfered with their work and
warmth, cleanliness, quiet and the proper selection
undermined their authority. There was also some
and administration of diet—all at the least expense
conflict between Nightingale and Dr. John Hall,
of vital power to the patient” (Nightingale, 1859).
the chief of the medical staff. At one time, after
Dr. Hall had been awarded the Knight This book was one of the first nursing textbooks
Commander of the Order of the Bath, Nightingale and is still widely quoted. Many nursing theorists
sarcastically referred to him as “Dr. Hall, K.C.B., have used Nightingale’s thoughts as a basis for con-
Knight of the Crimean Burial Grounds.” When structing their view of nursing.
Nightingale contracted Crimean fever, Hall used Nightingale believed that schools of nursing
this as an excuse to send her back to England. must be independent institutions and that women
However, Nightingale thwarted his resistance and who were selected to attend the schools should be
eventually won over the medical staff by creating an from the higher levels of society. Many of
operating room and supplying the instruments Nightingale’s beliefs about nursing education are
with her own resources. Although she returned to still applicable, particularly those involved with the
duty, she never fully recovered from the fever. She progress of students, the use of diaries kept by stu-
returned to England in 1865 a national heroine but dents, and the need for integrating theory into
remained a semi-invalid for the rest of her life. clinical practice (Roberts, 1937).
The Nightingale school served as a model for
A School for Nurses nursing education. Its graduates were sought world-
After her return from Crimea,Nightingale pursued wide. Many of them established schools and
two goals: reform of military health care and estab- became matrons (superintendents) in hospitals in
lishment of an official training school for nurses. other parts of England,the British Commonwealth,
The British public contributed more than and the United States. However, very few schools
$220,000 (a great sum of money at that time) to were able to remain financially independent of the
the Nightingale Fund for the purpose of establish- hospitals and so lost much of their autonomy. This
ing the school. was in contradiction to Nightingale’s philosophy
Although opposed by most of the physicians in that the training schools were educational institu-
Britain, the Nightingale Training School for tions, not part of any service agency.