Florence Nightingale

Deeply Christian , and inspired by what she considered a divine call, tried several times since 7 February 1837 , in 1845 announced to the family wishes to be dedicated to the care of sick and destitute. The opposition of the family and especially his mother reveals a very strong and determined and his rebellion against the roles of wife and mother by the company attributed to the women of his condition. For fear that the marriage interfere with his vocation as a nurse , in 1851 the court rejected the years of Richard Monckton Milnes , politician and poet (then First Lord Houghton and his great supporter), always against the will of their mother tongue.

Florence Nightingale ( Florence , 12 May 1820 - London , 13 August 1910 ) was a nurse UK known as The Lady with the lantern. It is considered the founder of ' nursing modern, as was the first to apply the scientific method through the use of statistics. It is also important because it suggested an organization of field hospitals.

Florence Nightingale (Youth)

He was born into a wealthy family and an elite British bourgeoisie (his father was a pioneer of ' epidemiology , maternal grandfather was the ' abolitionist William Smith ) was named in honor of Florence Florence (Florence in English ), the city where was born at Villa Dovecote (for the same reason, the older sister, born in Naples, was called Parthenope). The family owned an estate in Derbyshire and normally resident in Buckinghamshire .

The nurses at the time were estimated just a profession, so that the army had treated the food. Despite not having a medical and nursing training in the Nightingale soon recognized the shortcomings of the nursing profession as it was practiced at the time. Back in December 1844 became the leading propagandist for the improvement of medical care in clinics of workhouses for the poor, gaining the support of Charles Villiers , the first president of the Poor Law Board was established in 1847 , and taking part in the general reform of the Poor Laws ( for Scotland in 1845, for the rest of the kingdom in 1847).

In 1847 she met Sidney Herbert , politician and former minister of defense (it will be again during the Crimean War ): their lasting friendship will be decisive for both her ​​experience in the Crimea and beyond, both for his political career, interrupted by premature death in 1861 .

In 1850 , in order to clarify ideas about their future, she wrote Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth, never published in his lifetime and only partially in 1928 thanks to Ray Strachey, is both a work of theology and feminism .

Soon after, in 1850 stayed for a period Kaiserswerth in Düsseldorf , a hospital run by a group of Lutheran deaconesses, and was very impressed by the high quality of medical care provided, and there he returned in 1851 for a period of training and to prepare publication of a report published anonymously (The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc.). Her father granted her an annual pension of £ 500 (40,000 € today), which allowed her to follow her vocation without financial worries.