Florence
Nightingale or known as the Lady with the lamp became an almost angelic figure
because of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem.
Lo! In that house
of misery
A lady with a lamp
I see
Pass through the
glimmering gloom
And flit from room
to room
But apparently in
real life she was formidable and outspoken. Campaigning constantly for nursing,
hospital and Army reform.
On the 12 of May
was Florence Nightingale's 190th birthday. The museum had undergone a revamp
for £1.4 million and reopened on that day. Hopeful, it will show people her
whole legacy and not just that one version of The Lady with the Lamp.
She was born into a
wealthy, aristocratic family. Florence felt a longing to nurse. In her diary
she remarked, 'On February 7, 1837 God spoke to me and called me to his
service.'
At that time
hospitals were just somewhere to go to die. They were not regarded as to get
better or being cured. The nurses were mostly drunk. It definitely wasn't a
place for a young lady. Florence's family completely disallowed it. She studied
nursing in secret at night.
EMBLEY PARK WAS FLORENCE'S FAMILY HOME -- IT IS NOW A SCHOOL.
The refurbished
museum shows a display of her early life. Collections Manager Kirsteen Nixon
explains that they wanted to show a lifestyle of a gilded cage. There are
readings of Nightingale's words and those of her family and friends. The idea
is to emphasize how far away she was in her ambition to nurse and how hard she
had to fight to achieve it.
Trying to get the
idea out of her, Florence's parents sent her travelling with family friends
round Europe, including Egypt. However, she used the time to visit hospitals and
infirmaries. Finally, she trained at Kaiserswerth which was a religious
community near Duesseldorf, Germany in 1851.
She spent there
three months and wrote in her diary that they get up at 5 o'clock, had
breakfast at 5.45 and so on. Several evenings they collected in the Great
Hall for Bible lessons. Now I know what it is to live and love life.
Her family realized
that they cannot stop her and started to support her. When she came back she
went to work at London's Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in
Distressed Circumstances.
When she went to
Greece she found an owlet. She named it Athena. It was either riding on her
shoulders or in her pocket. Athena died in 1854. Soon after that Florence went
to Scutari hospital in Turkey.
No matter how she grieved
but it didn't stop her from her duty. She worked endlessly to make the hospital
efficient and effective. She was strict with nurses and patients but they loved
her for it. A famous saying was that they kissed her shadow when it fell across
their pillows.
The image as the
lady with the lamp came about with London Illustrated News in an 1855 edition.
It captured the public imagination. After that the image became famous and
Florence a global phenomenon. Collectors became interested in prints, pottery,
figurines and other souvenirs.
In 1856 she
returned and didn't appreciate the celebrity status. Florence threw herself
into research and campaigning, in spite of her ill health.
Her father taught
her mathematics which made her love statistics. With statistics she proved that
more soldiers died in the Crimean War of disease then being killed in battle.
She used this knowledge to campaign for better hygiene in all hospitals.
Florence also
influenced the practising of midwifery. She noticed that the mortality rate in
hospitals were far greater than those giving birth at home. In 1859, she
published 'Notes On Nursing' and sold 15,000 copies in the first months.
Apparently they are still used today.
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| A WARD IN SCUTARI HOSPITAL |
By the age of
90 Florence published more then 200 books, pamphlets and articles. She wrote
more than 14,000 letters. "Her lasting legacy is the professionalisation
of nursing," says Kirsteen Nixon. "She made it into a respectable
profession for women. Also the holistic nature of the job. She believed that
the patient not only needed his wound cleaned and bandaged, for example but
that he needed to be well fed and he needed to be clean too if he was to
recover. It was the first time anyone really thought of this idea."
When she died in
1910 aged 90, she rejected the opportunity to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
It shows how modest she was. She wanted to be buried in the family plot in East
Wellow, Hampshire. It could be this modesty that we always think of her as the
lady with the lamp. Yet, she was only two years nursing during the Crimean War.
Florence Nightingale's influence and achievements were far more wide ranging.
She disliked the
media attention. She got irritated because it did not focus on her serious
work. Many reports she didn't put her name on it or printed them privately to
avoid public attention.
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FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S GRAVE IN EAST WELLOW HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND |
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