Florence Nightingale Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Later career == In the [[Crimea]] on 29 November 1855, the Nightingale Fund was established for the training of nurses during a public meeting to recognise Nightingale for her work in the war. There was an outpouring of generous donations. Sidney Herbert served as honorary secretary of the fund and the [[Prince George, Duke of Cambridge|Duke of Cambridge]] was chairman. In her 1856 letters she described spas in the [[Ottoman Empire]], detailing the health conditions, physical descriptions, dietary information, and other vital details of patients whom she directed there. She noted that the treatment there was significantly less expensive than in Switzerland.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Role of Anesthesiology in Global Health: A Comprehensive Guide |date=2014 |publisher=Springer |page=9}}</ref> [[File:Florence Nightingale by Henry Hering, 1858.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Nightingale, {{circa}} 1858, by Goodman]] Nightingale had £45,000 at her disposal from the Nightingale Fund to set up the first nursing school, the Nightingale Training School, at [[St Thomas' Hospital]] on 9 July 1860.<ref>{{cite news |title=Florence Nightingale: The Mother of Nursing |work=[[National Institutes of Health]]|year=2015 |pmc=4557413 |last1=Karimi |first1=H. |last2=Masoudi Alavi |first2=N. |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=e29475 |pmid=26339672 }}</ref> The first trained Nightingale nurses began work on 16 May 1865 at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. Now called the [[Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery]], the school is part of [[King's College London]]. In 1866 she said the [[Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital]] in [[Aylesbury]] near her sister's home [[Claydon House]] would be "the most beautiful hospital in England", and in 1868 called it "an excellent model to follow".<ref>{{cite book |title=Florence Nightingale and Hospital Reform: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, volume 16 |date=2012 |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press |page=639}}</ref> Nightingale wrote ''[[Notes on Nursing]]'' (1859). The book served as the cornerstone of the curriculum at the Nightingale School and other nursing schools, though it was written specifically for the education of those nursing at home. Nightingale wrote, "Every day sanitary knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It is recognised as the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have".<ref name="FlorenceNightingale">{{cite book |title=Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not |last=Nightingale |first=Florence |chapter=Preface |year=1974 |orig-year=1859 |publisher=Blackie & Son |location= Glasgow and London |isbn=978-0-216-89974-2}}</ref> ''Notes on Nursing'' also sold well to the general reading public and is considered a classic introduction to nursing. Nightingale spent the rest of her life promoting and organising the nursing profession. In the introduction to the 1974 edition, Joan Quixley of the Nightingale School of Nursing wrote: "The book was the first of its kind ever to be written. It appeared at a time when the simple rules of health were only beginning to be known, when its topics were of vital importance not only for the well-being and recovery of patients, when hospitals were riddled with infection, when nurses were still mainly regarded as ignorant, uneducated persons. The book has, inevitably, its place in the history of nursing, for it was written by the founder of modern nursing".<ref name="QuixleyonNightingale">{{cite book |title=Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not |last=Nightingale |first=Florence |chapter=Introduction by Joan Quixley |year=1974 |orig-year=1859 |publisher= Blackie & Son |isbn=978-0-216-89974-2}}</ref> [[File:Martin Chuzzlewit illus11.jpg|thumb|upright|Illustration in Charles Dickens' ''[[Martin Chuzzlewit]]''. Nurse Sarah Gamp (left) became a stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era, before the reforms of Nightingale.]] As [[Mark Bostridge]] has demonstrated, one of Nightingale's signal achievements was the introduction of trained nurses into the [[workhouse]] system in Britain from the 1860s onwards.<ref name="Bostridge"/> This meant that sick paupers were no longer being cared for by other, able-bodied paupers, but by properly trained nursing staff. In the first half of the 19th century, nurses were usually former servants or widows who found no other job and therefore were forced to earn their living by this work. [[Charles Dickens]] caricatured the standard of care in his 1842–1843 published novel ''[[Martin Chuzzlewit]]'' in the figure of [[Sarah Gamp]] as being incompetent, negligent, alcoholic and corrupt. According to Caroline Worthington, director of the [[Florence Nightingale Museum]], "When she [Nightingale] started out there was no such thing as nursing. The Dickens character Sarah Gamp, who was more interested in drinking gin than looking after her patients, was only a mild exaggeration. Hospitals were places of last resort where the floors were laid with straw to soak up the blood. Florence transformed nursing when she got back [from Crimea]. She had access to people in high places and she used it to get things done. Florence was stubborn, opinionated, and forthright but she had to be those things in order to achieve all that she did."<ref name="Express"/> Though Nightingale is sometimes said to have denied the theory of infection for her entire life, a 2008 biography disagrees,<ref name="Bostridge">Mark Bostridge (2008). ''Florence Nightingale, the Woman and her Legend''. Viking.</ref> saying that she was simply opposed to a precursor of germ theory known as [[Contingent contagionism|contagionism]]. This theory held that diseases could only be transmitted by touch. Before the experiments of the mid-1860s by [[Louis Pasteur|Pasteur]] and [[Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister|Lister]], hardly anyone took germ theory seriously; even afterwards, many medical practitioners were unconvinced. Bostridge points out that in the early 1880s Nightingale wrote an article for a textbook in which she advocated strict precautions designed, she said, to kill germs. Nightingale's work served as an inspiration for nurses in the [[American Civil War]]. The [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] government approached her for advice in organising field medicine. Her ideas inspired the volunteer body of the [[United States Sanitary Commission]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The Sanitary Commission—The Red Cross |agency=JSTOR |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=1910|jstor=2186240 }}</ref> Nightingale advocated autonomous nursing leadership, and that her new style of matrons had full control and discipline over their nursing staff.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vicinus |first=Martha |title=Independent Women, Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=1985 |location=London |pages=109}}</ref> The infamous "[[Guy's Hospital]] dispute" in 1879–1880 between matron Margaret Burt and hospital medical staff highlighted how doctors sometimes felt that their authority was being challenged by these new style Nightingale matrons. This was not an isolated episode and other matrons experienced similar issues, such as [[Eva Luckes]].<ref>Rogers, Sarah (2022). [https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.889762 {{"'}}A Maker of Matrons'? A study of Eva Lückes's influence on a generation of nurse leaders: 1880–1919"] (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Huddersfield, April 2022).</ref> [[File:Florence nightingale at st thomas.jpg|thumb|left|Florence Nightingale (middle) in 1886 with her graduating [[Florence nightingale school of nursing and midwifery|class of nurses]] from [[St Thomas' Hospital|St Thomas']] outside [[Claydon House]], Buckinghamshire]] In the 1870s, Nightingale mentored [[Linda Richards]], "America's first trained nurse", and enabled her to return to the United States with adequate training and knowledge to establish high-quality nursing schools.<ref>{{cite book |title=Role Development for Doctoral Advanced Nursing Practice |date=15 December 2010 |publisher=Springer Publishing Company |page=325}}</ref> Richards went on to become a nursing pioneer in the US and Japan.<ref>Linda Richards (1915) [https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesli02richgoog ''Reminiscences of Linda Richards''], Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston {{oclc|1350705}}</ref> By 1882, several Nightingale nurses had become matrons at several leading hospitals, including, in London ([[St Mary's Hospital (London)|St Mary's Hospital]], Westminster Hospital, St Marylebone Workhouse Infirmary and the [[Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability|Hospital for Incurables]] at [[Putney]]) and throughout Britain ([[Netley Hospital|Royal Victoria Hospital]], [[Netley]]; [[Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh|Edinburgh Royal Infirmary]]; Cumberland Infirmary and Liverpool Royal Infirmary), as well as at [[Sydney Hospital]] in [[New South Wales]], Australia.<ref>{{cite news |title=Bicentenary of a hospital built from a rum deal |url=http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bicentenary-of-a-hospital-built-from-a-rum-deal-20111028-1moaj.html |newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald |date=26 October 2017 |access-date=26 October 2017 |archive-date=27 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027132700/http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bicentenary-of-a-hospital-built-from-a-rum-deal-20111028-1moaj.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1883, Nightingale became the first recipient of the [[Royal Red Cross]]. In 1904, she was appointed a [[Order of Saint John (chartered 1888)|Lady of Grace of the Order of St John (LGStJ)]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=27677 |date=17 May 1904 |page=3185}}</ref> In 1907, she became the first woman to be awarded the [[Order of Merit]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28084 |date=29 November 1907 |page=8331}}</ref> In the following year she was given the [[Freedom of the City|Honorary Freedom]] of the [[City of London]]. Her birthday is now celebrated as [[International May 12th Awareness Day]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.may12th.org/ |title=May 12th International Awareness Day |access-date=12 May 2015 |archive-date=18 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150718185451/http://www.may12th.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref> From 1857 onwards, Nightingale was intermittently bedridden and suffered from depression. A recent biography cites [[brucellosis]] and associated [[spondylitis]] as the cause.<ref>Bostridge (2008)</ref> Most authorities today accept that Nightingale suffered from a particularly extreme form of brucellosis, the effects of which only began to lift in the early 1880s. Despite her symptoms, she remained phenomenally productive in social reform. During her bedridden years, she also did pioneering work in the field of hospital planning, and her work propagated quickly across Britain and the world. Nightingale's output slowed down considerably in her last decade. She wrote very little during that period due to blindness and declining mental abilities, though she still retained an interest in current affairs.<ref name="NightingaleCrimeanColectedWorkds"/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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