MedTeck.
1820-1910
Florence Nightingale was a very important person in the Crimean War improving the sanitary conditions in British base hospitals. Born May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. She founded the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. She had one older sibling and was part of a moderately high class family. Her mother had a huge interest in social climbing but on the other hand Florence didn't want to be the center of attention. She was given a classical education in German, French, and Italian.
She was very active in helping the poor people in the village with illnesses and when she was 16 she knew that she wanted to become a nurse. When she told her parents about becoming a nurse they didn't approve. Nursing at the time was viewed as a job only for lower class people. Disobeying her parents she became a nursing student at a hospital in Germany.
Florence Nightingale Obituary By Alim Zaib
When the Crimean War broke out she received a letter to assemble a team of nurses to send to the Crimea a few days later. She did and knew the terrible danger she was in but she went anyway. When she got there she saw the terrible sanitary conditions and the hospital was littered with bugs and insects.
She discovered that more soldiers were dying because of diseases than from wounds in battle. So she asked the most healthy patients to scrub the whole hospital from bottom to top and this in turn reduced the deaths by 2/3rds.
When she went back to England she was given a very warm welcome and the British government granted her $250,000. She used this money to establish a hospital and a training school for nurses called the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. She died at her home on August 10th 1910 due to many diseases that may have infected her during her times as a nurse. Florence Nightingale will always be remembered in our hearts as a hero.