Florence Nightingale

• Florence Nightingale studied to become a nurse in 1849 despite opposition from her family.
• Sidney Herbert asked Nightingale to go to Scutari during the Crimean War to improve the nursing care at Barrack Hospital.
• She went with 38 hand-picked nurses even though the military saw women nurses as a distraction and inferior to male nurses.
• Florence made wards clean and hygienic and supplied adequate water supplies and food. She decreased the death rate from 42% to 2%.
• Nightingale published 'Notes on Nursing' in 1859 emphasising the need for good hygiene and a professional attitude.
• £44,000 was publicly raised for the Nightingale School of Nurses in London. 3 years of training was required and by 1900, there were 64,000 trained nurses.
• In 1919, the Nurses Registration act was launched making training compulsory for nurses.
• She believed in miasma but her teachings suggested good hygiene could prevent disease.
• Florence Nightingale turned nursing into a respectable profession and hospitals started caring for everybody.