Florence Nightingale — A Woman Who Wrote a Page in the History of Humanity

Florence Nightingale has often been described as a gentle, mysterious figure, moving by night through the wards of the hospital in the Crimea, who earned the title of "the Lady of the Light." She was a woman of strong will, of wondrous endurance and surpassing courage — a woman who fought helplessness in all its shapes and forms until in the end she was able to defeat it; and she is the true founder of the system of training British nurses.

She was the descendant of a cultured, wealthy family, and lived a life that was all pleasure; yet she was sensitive to a high degree, and it pained her to see others suffer. At the same time she was confident that woman, with her capacity and her patience, could lift this pain from the suffering; so she began the study of hospital systems and of surgery on the European continent and in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh.

She was thirty-four years of age when the British people learned, in 1945, that the forces in the Crimea were in a pitiable condition of sickness and wounds. It was certain that some woman would be asked to organize the medical and nursing services; so the Minister of War wrote to Florence Nightingale asking her to undertake this task, and she replied at once, offering her services.

Within a week a company of nurses was organized, ready to travel to the East. When she reached the hospital at Scutari she found matters far from well: there were some four miles of corridors, and the great wards were full of naked wounded, scattered here and there in a state of chaos. The place had been overrun by insects and rats. Nevertheless Florence set about her new task with a firm resolve that knew neither weakness nor weariness. She saw that conditions must be improved quickly, so she worked night and day with the nurses she had brought from England, and the work sometimes stretched to twenty hours a day without rest, owing to the unceasing arrival of the wounded.

Nor was Florence merely an organizer: she was a trained organizer. She took charge of supervising the supplies the government sent, and she took charge of supervising the cooking as well.

She obtained a neighboring house and turned it into a place for washing and ironing clothes. The nurses prepared bandages, splints, pillows, and mattresses, and she obtained thousands of shirts that reached her from England, paid for by herself and her friends. After the passing of a year, the place had turned into an orderly, clean hospital, and became one of the greatest hospitals in the land.

During the winter months Florence gained that title by which she came to be known afterward — the title of the Lady of the Light — because she used to go about at night, holding a lamp in her hand, through every part of the hospital, to see whether any of the patients was in need of her services. One of the wounded said of her: "We used to sleep in that hospital, and our numbers were great; yet when we saw her shadow we kissed it and laid our heads back upon the pillows in the utmost happiness."

When she returned to her homeland she traveled under an assumed name so as to avoid enthusiastic receptions, and she settled in her family's old house in the heart of the countryside. But the flame she had kindled did not go out, for she kept feeding it with her writings and her guidance. Queen Victoria wrote of her personality after meeting her, and, feeling the force of that personality, wished she were at the War Office. Florence lived for many years a secluded life, yet her great, merciful heart never ceased to send forth its strong ray. She died in 1910, at about ninety years of age. No one will forget her merciful services, and her inspiration lives on to this day, drawn upon by nurses in all the fields of the world.

The women of Britain take up the profession of nursing in great numbers, and during the war British nurses were to be found in all the theaters of battle, doing what duty and humanity dictated. Florence Nightingale was the greatest woman in nursing, and it was she who founded the system of training women for the work of nursing.