Florence Nightingale

Posted October 4, 2007, 11:48 pm
Credit Growing Bolder

Florence Nightingale
Born: May 12, 1820
Died: Aug. 13, 1910

Born to wealthy English parents, Nightingale said she heard a calling from God at an early age and devoted her life to making nursing a noble profession.

Recognized as the founder of modern nursing and one of the most famous women in history, she founded the groundbreaking Nightingale Training School for Nurses.

She opened the Womens Medical College along with Elizabeth Blackwell and published dozens of books and pamphlets on nursing and sanitation methods.  In addition to her pioneering nursing work, she was an accomplished mathematician statistician and the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society.

• At age 63 (1863), Queen Victoria awarded Nightingale with the Royal Red Cross.

After the Age of 70

• At age 87, she became the first woman awarded the Order of Merit.
• At age 88, was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London.
• Until her death at the age of 90, she continued to push for reform of the British military health-care system and to give the nursing profession the respect it deserved.

Quotes:

• “I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.”
•  "You ask me why I do not write something.... I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results."
  
• “There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain.”

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