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CHAPTER 6 Florence Nightingale 61

and charitable institutions. Only 2 years after com- She continued to concentrate on army sanitation
pleting her training (in 1853), she became the super- reform, the functions of army hospitals, sanitation
intendent of the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen in India, and sanitation and health care for the poor
in London. in England. Her writings, Notes on Matters Affecting
During the Crimean War, Nightingale received a the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration
request from Sidney Herbert (a family friend and the of the British Army Founded Chiefly on the Experience
Secretary of War) to travel to Scutari, Turkey, with a of the Late War (Nightingale, 1858a), Notes on Hospi-
group of nurses to care for wounded British soldiers. tals (Nightingale, 1858b), and Report on Measures
She arrived there in November 1854, accompanied by Adopted for Sanitary Improvements in India, from
34 newly recruited nurses who met her criteria for June 1869 to June 1870 (Nightingale, 1871), reflect her
professional nursing—young, middle-class women continuing concern about these issues.
with a basic general education. To achieve her mis- Shortly after her return to England, Nightingale
sion of providing nursing care, she needed to address confined herself to her residence in London, citing her
the environmental problems that existed, including continued ill health. Until 80 years of age, she wrote
the lack of sanitation and the presence of filth (few between 15,000 and 20,000 letters to friends, acquain-
chamber pots, contaminated water, contaminated bed tances, allies, and opponents. Her strong, clear written
linens, and overflowing cesspools). In addition, the word conveyed her beliefs, observations, and desire
soldiers were faced with exposure, frostbite, louse for change in health care and in society. Through these
infestations, wound infections, and opportunistic dis- writings, she was able to influence issues in the world
eases as they recovered from their battle wounds. that concerned her. When necessary and when her
Nightingale’s work in improving these deplorable health allowed, Nightingale received powerful persons
conditions made her a popular and revered person as visitors in her home to maintain dialogue, plot
to the soldiers, but the support of physicians and strategies to support causes, and carry out her work.
military officers was less enthusiastic. She was called During her lifetime, Nightingale’s work was recog-
The Lady of the Lamp, as immortalized in the poem nized through the many awards she received from her
“Santa Filomena” (Longfellow, 1857), because she own country and from many others. She was able to
made ward rounds during the night, providing emo- work into her 80s until she lost her vision; she died in
tional comfort to the soldiers. In Scutari, Nightingale her sleep on August 13, 1910, at 90 years of age.
became critically ill with Crimean fever, which might Modern biographers and essayists have attempted
have been typhus or brucellosis and which may have to analyze Nightingale’s lifework through her family
affected her physical condition for years afterward. relationships, notably with her parents and sister.
After the war, Nightingale returned to England to Film dramatizations have focused frequently and in-
great accolades, particularly from the royal family accurately on her personal relationships with family
(Queen Victoria), the soldiers who had survived the and friends. Although her personal and public life
Crimean War, their families, and the families of holds great intrigue for many, these retrospective
those who died at Scutari. She was awarded funds in analyses often are very negative and harshly critical or
recognition of this work, which she used to establish overly positive in their descriptions of this Victorian
schools for nursing training at St. Thomas’s Hospital leader and founder of modern nursing. Many biogra-
and King’s College Hospital in London. Within a phies have been written to describe Nightingale’s life
few years, the Nightingale School began to receive and work. Cook (1913) wrote the first original and
requests to establish new schools at hospitals world- comprehensive biography of Nightingale, which was
wide, and Florence Nightingale’s reputation as the based on her written papers, but it may have been
founder of modern nursing was established. biased by her family’s involvement in and oversight of
Nightingale devoted her energies not only to the the project. It remains the most positive biography
development of nursing as a vocation (profession), written. Shortly thereafter, Strachey (1918) described
but even more to local, national, and international her negatively as arrogant and manipulative in his
societal issues, in an attempt to improve the living book, Eminent Victorians. O’Malley (1931) wrote
environment of the poor and to create social change. a more positive biography that focused on her life