Science · Maths, astronomy, medicine & more

Florence Nightingale

1820–1910 · British

Medicine — nursing and medical statistics

Florence Nightingale was the founder of modern nursing, who led a team of nurses to the British military hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War and became famous as 'the Lady with the Lamp'. A gifted statistician, she used innovative diagrams to show that most soldiers' deaths came from preventable disease, driving reforms in army and hospital sanitation. In 1860 she founded the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas' Hospital, London.

How to spot them

▸'The Lady with the Lamp'; Scutari (Üsküdar) in the Crimean War
▸Polar area ('coxcomb' or 'rose') diagrams of causes of death
▸Notes on Nursing (1859); Nightingale Training School at St Thomas' Hospital
▸Named after the city of Florence, where she was born
▸First woman awarded the Order of Merit (1907); International Nurses Day on her birthday, 12 May

Key discoveries & works

Nursing at the Barrack Hospital, Scutari, in the Crimean War (1854–1856)

Arrived with 38 nurses in November 1854

Polar area 'coxcomb' diagrams of army mortality (1858)

Showed deaths from preventable disease far exceeded deaths from wounds

Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not (1859)

Best-selling guide to nursing and household health

Notes on Hospitals (1859)

Argued for hospital design based on sanitation and ventilation

Founding of the Nightingale Training School for Nurses (1860)

At St Thomas' Hospital, London, funded by the Nightingale Fund

Key ideas

Sanitation, ventilation, clean water and hygiene dramatically reduce hospital deaths
Statistics presented visually can persuade politicians and drive reform
Nursing as a trained, respectable profession for women

Quick-fire facts

•Born on 12 May 1820 in Florence, Italy, and named after the city
•Sent to Scutari by Secretary at War Sidney Herbert
•In 1858 became the first woman elected a Fellow of the (Royal) Statistical Society
•In 1907 became the first woman awarded the Order of Merit
•Longfellow's poem 'Santa Filomena' (1857) celebrates her
•Appeared on the Bank of England £10 note from 1975 to 1994
•The NHS Nightingale temporary hospitals of 2020 were named after her
•Buried at St Margaret's Church, East Wellow, Hampshire, having declined burial in Westminster Abbey

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources

The National Archives — Florence Nightingale
Mark Bostridge — Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend