Florence Nightingale, who has done so much to improve the nursing of the sick, was born on May 12, 1820, at Florence, in Italy, and was named after her birthplace. Her parents soon went back to live in England, where her father owned a country-house, called Lea Hurst, in Derbyshire. They spent their summers in Derbyshire, and in the autumn moved to Embley Park, in Hampshire, another house belonging to Mr. Nightingale. Florence grew up loving the country and the country people who lived round her home. As a little girl she was very fond of dolls, and used to pretend that they were ill, and nurse them, and bandage their broken limbs, with the greatest care and skill. She was devoted to animals and had many pets for whom she cared tenderly. Once, when she was out riding on her pony, she came upon an old shepherd whose dog had had his leg hurt by some mischievous boys. The shepherd thought that there was nothing to be done but to kill the dog to put it out of its misery. But Florence begged to be allowed to try to cure it. The leg proved not to be broken, and Florence poulticed it so cleverly that the dog was soon well again.

Florence was educated at home. Her father was very particular about her studies, and she learnt well and quickly. Even as a child she loved to visit sick people, and as soon as she was grown up, she spent most of her time in the cottages and in the village school. The old and the sick loved her visits, and her gentle, clever ways did much to ease their suffering. For the children, she invented all kinds of amusements, and delighted in playing with them. She also held a Bible class for the elder girls. So far her life had been spent much like that of many other English girls. She was pretty and charming and known to be very clever; she had travelled a good deal, and her home-life, with parents who delighted in her and one sister to whom she was devoted, was absolutely happy. But every year her interest in nursing the sick grew stronger. She had been much impressed by meeting Elizabeth Fry, and by hearing from her of the Institute of Kaiserswerth in Germany, where deaconesses were trained for nursing the sick poor. In order to find out how the sick were nursed in her own country, she visited some of the chief hospitals, and was grieved to find what ignorant, rough women the nurses were. They had no training, and did little for the comfort of the patients; the hospitals were dirty and badly kept, and the nurses were much given to drinking. Miss Nightingale also travelled in France, Germany, and Italy to visit the hospitals. There she found things on the whole much better, as the nursing was mostly done by nuns, or Sisters of Charity, religious women who had given their lives for the service of their fellow-creatures.

When she was twenty-nine, Miss Nightingale decided to go herself to Kaiserswerth to study nursing. She spent only a few months there, but she was delighted with what she saw and learned. Many years afterwards she wrote: “Never have I met with a higher love, a purer devotion than there. There was no neglect. The food was poor—no coffee but bean coffee—no luxury but cleanliness.” She was much loved at Kaiserswerth; and an English lady who was there eleven years afterwards was told that many of “the sick remembered much of her teaching, and some died happily, blessing her for having led them to Jesus.” Miss Nightingale wrote a little book about Kaiserswerth, in which she urged that women should be encouraged to work, and should be trained properly for their work. She herself at first used the knowledge that she had gained in tending the poor who lived near her own home. After a while, she moved to London that she might be able to help in other charitable work. She was interested in a Home that had been started for sick governesses, which she heard was in a very unsatisfactory condition, and went to live there herself, shutting herself off from all society that she might care for the sick women in the Home, and arrange for its proper management. She was not at all strong, and after a time grew ill from the strain of too much work and had to go back to the country to rest.

It was about this time that England and France declared war on Russia, and the Crimean War began. England had not been at war for forty years, and the army was in no way well prepared. The country rejoiced to hear of the victory of the Alma won over the Russians, but people learnt with indignation of the sufferings of the soldiers after the battle. Nothing was ready for the care of the wounded, even food and clothing were scarce. Letters from the Crimea told terrible stories of the sufferings of the men. The French had fifty Sisters of Mercy to tend their sick, but the English had no female nurses. In the Times newspaper, a long letter, giving an account of the terrible state of things, was published, which ended with these words: “Are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the East in the hospitals at Scutari? Are none of the daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work of mercy?” Many were stirred by this appeal and sent in offers of help to the War Office. Mr. Sidney Herbert, the Minister for War, was eager to send the needed help, but he felt that to send out women not trained for such work would be useless. He knew Miss Nightingale intimately, and it seemed to him that she was the one woman in England whose character and training fitted her to take the lead in this matter. He got the permission of the government to ask her to undertake the post of Superintendent of Nurses for the Crimea. Then he wrote to her to tell her the state of affairs. A large barrack hospital had been set apart for the sick and wounded soldiers at Scutari on the Bosphorus. Here the wounded were brought by ship from the Crimea. Masses of stores were being sent out, but there were no female nurses, and as women had never been employed to nurse soldiers, there were no experienced nurses ready to go, though many devoted women had offered their services. Mr. Herbert felt that there would be great difficulty in ruling the band of untrained nurses, and in making the new arrangements work smoothly with the medical and military authorities. He told Miss Nightingale that, if she would go, she should have full authority over the nurses, and the support of the government in all she might wish to do. He said that the whole success of the plan depended upon her willingness to go, and that her experience, her knowledge, her place in society gave her the power to do this work which no one else possessed. In those days it was quite a new thing to think of a lady being a nurse at all, and quite an unheard-of thing that a lady should go to nurse soldiers. Mr. Herbert thought that if this new plan succeeded, it would do an enormous amount of good both then and afterwards.

Miss Nightingale too, had read the letter in the Times, and was thinking over it in her home in the country. Before Mr. Herbert’s letter reached her, she wrote to him of her own accord offering her services to go as nurse to the hospitals at Scutari. The moment had come for which unconsciously she had been long preparing, and she was ready for the work which came to her. Her letter crossed Mr. Herbert’s. It was written on October 15, 1854, and immediately it was announced in the Times that Miss Nightingale had been appointed Superintendent of Nurses at Scutari. She at once set to work to collect the band of thirty-eight nurses whom she was to take out with her. There were a few Institutions in existence for training nurses, and to these Miss Nightingale appealed for volunteers. Twenty-four of those she took out came from such places. Six days after she had made her offer to go, she was ready to start with her band complete. They crossed the Channel to Boulogne, where the people had heard of their coming; the fishwives turned out to meet them, and insisted on carrying their bags from the boat to the train. They, too, were interested in the war where English and French soldiers were fighting side by side, and as they walked with them they begged the nurses to take care of any of their dear ones should they meet them. With tears and warm shakes of the hand they bade farewell to them, crying, “Long live the sisters,” as the train carried them away.

On November 4th, Miss Nightingale and her nurses reached Scutari, where the poor men in hospital had heard of their coming, but could not believe the good news. One man cried when he saw them, exclaiming, “I can’t help it when I see them. Only think of English women coming out here to nurse us! It seems so homelike and comfortable.” It was a terrible state of things that Miss Nightingale found in the hospitals. The filth, misery, and disorder were indescribable. In the long corridors the wounded men lay crowded together; many of them had not even had their wounds dressed, nor their broken limbs set. There were no vessels for water, no towels or soap, no hospital clothes. The men lay in their uniforms, stiff with blood. The beds were reeking with infection, and rats and vermin of every kind swarmed over them. There was no time to plan reforms or to bring any order into the hospitals before more wounded from the battle of Inkermann arrived in terrible numbers, only twenty-four hours after Miss Nightingale had come. Her courage rose to the occasion, terrible though it was, and inspired her companions. Whilst they all worked without ceasing to do what they could to help the worst suffering, she, in the midst of all her labours, thought out what could be done to bring order into the awful confusion. She had to see that proper supplies of all the things needed for the comfort of the soldiers were sent out from England, and to make arrangements for the distribution of the stores when they arrived. Her energy and her disregard of some of the rules laid down by the military authorities about the distribution of the stores made some people very angry, and there was a good deal of grumbling at what they considered her unnecessary haste and her interference. But Miss Nightingale cared for nothing so long as she could do the task for which she had been sent out. She set up a kitchen where food could be cooked for the sick and wounded, and a laundry where their clothes could be washed and disinfected. She wrote to England clear accounts of the state of things she had found, without any grumbling, but pointed out what had to be done for the proper care of the men. Opposition to her ways disappeared as it became clear how admirable were the results of her work. She won the orderlies to work with the utmost patience and devotion under the direction of the lady nurses; so that she could say that not one of them failed her in obedience, thoughtful attention, and considerate delicacy. They were rough, ignorant men, but in the midst of scenes of loathsome disease and death they showed to Miss Nightingale and her nurses the most courteous chivalry and constant gentleness, and she never heard from them a word that could shock her.

The gratitude and devotion of the patients to her knew no bounds. At nights she used to pass through the long corridors, and the endless wards—there were four miles of wards in the hospital—carrying a little lamp in her hand, so as to see that all was well, and from this the patients learnt to call her “the lady of the lamp.” They felt that she was their good angel, and one of them said afterwards, describing the comfort it was even to see her pass, “She would speak to one and another, and nod and smile to many more, but she could not do it to all for we lay there by hundreds; but we would kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again content.”

Huddled together in two or three damp rooms in the basement of the hospital, Miss Nightingale found a great number of poor women, the wives of the soldiers, with their babies, living in the utmost misery and discomfort. She did not rest till she had arranged better quarters for them. Some ladies were found to befriend them. Those whose husbands had been killed in the war were sent back to England, many were given work in the laundry which Miss Nightingale had started, and a school was opened for the children.

When the winter came on, the sufferings of the soldiers increased. The army was engaged in the siege of Sevastopol, and Miss Nightingale described the sufferings endured by the soldiers there in a letter to a friend: “Fancy working five nights out of seven in the trenches! Fancy being thirty-six hours in them at a stretch, with no food but raw salt pork sprinkled with sugar, rum, and biscuit; nothing hot ... fancy through all this the army preserving their courage and patience as they have done. There is something sublime in the spectacle.” The hospitals were crowded with men brought in ill from the results of this exposure. Early in 1855 fifty more trained nurses were sent out from England, and they came in time to help in a terrible outbreak of cholera which filled the hospital with new patients, most of whom died after a few hours’ suffering. Frost-bitten men were brought in too from Sevastopol, and of all these sufferers at least half died in spite of the care of the nurses. Again and again it was Miss Nightingale who comforted the dying and received from them the last message to be sent to the dear ones at home. She wrote down their words and took care of their watches or other possessions which they wished to send home.

The hearts of people in England were stirred by all they heard of the sufferings of the soldiers and of the devotion of the nurses. Supplies of every kind were sent out in great quantities, and all that was needed was that their use should be wisely organised. Miss Nightingale was much helped by the arrival of M. Soyer, the famous French cook, who came out at his own expense to organise the cooking in the hospitals. He introduced new stoves and many reforms in the kitchens, and was a most devoted admirer of the Lady-in-Chief, as Miss Nightingale was called.

After six months’ work at Scutari, Miss Nightingale set out to visit the hospitals in the Crimea itself. M. Soyer and several of her nurses went with her. She rode to the camp near Balaclava, where she could hear the thunder of the guns which besieged Sevastopol. As she passed through the camp, some of the men who had been her patients at Scutari recognised her, and greeted her with a hearty cheer. The hundreds of sick in the field hospital were delighted to receive a visit from the lady of whom they had heard so much. Afterwards she rode right up into the trenches outside Sevastopol, so that the sentry was alarmed at her daring. Next day she visited another hospital at Balaclava and left some of her nurses to work there. She was on board the ship which was to take her back to Scutari, when she was suddenly seized with a very bad attack of Crimean fever. The doctors said that she must at once be taken to the Sanatorium at Balaclava. Laid on a stretcher she was carried by the soldiers up the mountain side. For a few days it was thought that she was dying, but presently the joyful news was spread that she was better. She herself says that the first thing that helped her to recover was her joy over a bunch of wild flowers that had been brought her. Whilst she lay ill she was visited by Lord Raglan, the Commander-in-Chief of the army, who wished to thank her for all that she had done for the troops. She would not hear of going back to England after her illness as her friends wished, but as soon as possible returned to Scutari.

In the autumn, Sevastopol fell, and this brought the war to an end. But Miss Nightingale would not return home as the hospitals were still full of sick and wounded who could not be moved. She paid another visit to the hospitals in the Crimea, and travelled from one place to another over the bad mountain roads, in a carriage which had been specially made for her. She did much for the comfort of the soldiers, who had to stay on in the Crimea, and started libraries for them and reading-huts where they could go to sit and read; lectures and classes were also provided for them, and arrangements made to enable them to send home easily money and letters to their families.

Before she left the Crimea, Miss Nightingale set up, at her own cost, a white marble cross twenty feet high as a monument to the dead. It was dedicated to the memory of the soldiers who had perished and to the nurses who had died in tending them, and on it was written in English and Russian, “Lord, have mercy upon us.”

From all sides she received tributes for her services. The Sultan gave her a diamond bracelet; Queen Victoria sent her a beautiful jewel specially designed by Prince Albert. Speaking in the House of Lords, Lord Ellesmere said: “The hospitals are empty. The angel of mercy still lingers to the last on the scene of her labours; but her mission is all but accomplished. Those long arcades of Scutari, in which dying men sat up to catch the sound of her footstep or the flutter of her dress, and fell back on the pillows content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now comparatively deserted. She may be thinking how to escape, as best she may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation’s appreciation of the deeds and motives of Florence Nightingale.” This was just what Miss Nightingale wished to do. The government offered to bring her home in a man-of-war, but she travelled quietly back under the name of Miss Smith, so that her uncommon name might not attract attention to her. When she got to her own home, she went in by the back door. Crowds of people used to gather round the park in the following weeks in the hope of seeing her, but she refused to receive any sort of public welcome.

As soon as the war came to an end, before Miss Nightingale had returned home, a movement was started to give her a testimonial from the nation. Her friends had said that the only testimonial she would accept would be one which would help on the cause of providing trained nurses for the hospitals; and a Nightingale Hospital Fund was started to be given to her on her return to start her work of reform. Public meetings were held in support of this fund and when Miss Nightingale got back it had reached £48,000. With the help of friends she considered how best this money could be used. She was too ill to undertake herself as she had intended to manage the new institute for training nurses or to do more than advise from her sick room what had best be done. She had hoped that rest would completely restore her health, and even wished to go out to India to nurse when the mutiny broke out in 1857; but this was impossible. After her return from the Crimea she led almost continuously an invalid life; but it was not an idle life. She directed all the arrangements for using the Nightingale Fund, which was chiefly devoted to starting a school for training nurses at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London; the Nightingale nurses will always keep alive the memory of her name. In all other matters connected with nursing she always took an active interest, especially in the health of the soldiers and in nursing in the army, and also in starting district nurses to nurse the sick poor in their own homes. Her advice was constantly sought, and she wrote many papers about nursing which were most useful, especially a very popular little book called “Notes on Nursing.” But for more than fifty years since her wonderful work in the Crimea, she has lived a secluded life as an invalid, though it has been a life full of work and thought for the service of others. She is still living (in 1909) but is a complete invalid. The great lesson of her life is, that she had prepared herself so well that when the opportunity for doing a great piece of work came to her, she was able to use it. She had learnt and studied, and when the need came she was ready.