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! == Contributions == === Statistics and sanitary reform === Florence Nightingale exhibited a gift for mathematics from an early age and excelled in the subject under the tutelage of her father.{{efn|There were rumours that she was tutored by an eminent mathematician who was a friend of the family. Mark Bostridge says, "There appears to be no documentary evidence to connect Florence with [[James Joseph Sylvester|J. J. Sylvester]]."<ref>{{cite book|first=Mark|last=Bostridge|title=Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M-FEXr2kf7AC&pg=PT1172|year=2008|page=1172|publisher=Macmillan |isbn=9781466802926|access-date=12 December 2015|archive-date=4 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604014110/https://books.google.com/books?id=M-FEXr2kf7AC&pg=PT1172|url-status=live}}</ref>}} Later, Nightingale became a pioneer in the visual presentation of information and [[statistical graphics]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewi |first=Paul J. |author-link=Paul Lewi |title=Speaking of Graphics |year=2006 |url=http://www.datascope.be/sog.htm |access-date=8 May 2008 |archive-date=11 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090311012925/http://www.datascope.be/sog.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> She used methods such as the [[pie chart]], which had first been developed by [[William Playfair]] in 1801.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Playfair|first1=William|author-link1=William Playfair|last2=Wainer|first2=Howard|author-link2=Howard Wainer|last3=Spence|first3=Ian|author-link3=Ian Spence (psychologist)|title=Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521855549}}</ref> While taken for granted now, it was at the time a relatively novel method of presenting data.<ref name=Cohen1984>{{cite journal |last=Cohen |first=I. Bernard |author-link=I. Bernard Cohen |title=Florence Nightingale |journal=Scientific American |volume=250 |pages=128β137 |date=March 1984 |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0384-128 |pmid= 6367033 |issue= 3 |bibcode=1984SciAm.250c.128C|s2cid=5409191 }} (alternative pagination depending on country of sale: 98β107, bibliography on p. 114) [http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/soci708/ online article β see documents link at left] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100705052627/http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/soci708/ |date=5 July 2010 }}</ref> Indeed, Nightingale is described as "a true pioneer in the graphical representation of statistics" and is especially well known for her usage of a [[polar area diagram]],<ref name=Cohen1984/>{{rp|page=107}} or occasionally the ''Nightingale rose diagram'', equivalent to a modern circular [[histogram]], to illustrate seasonal sources of patient mortality in the military field hospital she managed. While frequently credited as the creator of the polar area diagram, it is known to have been used by AndrΓ©-Michel Guerry in 1829<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Friendly |first1=Michael |title=A.-M. Guerry's Moral Statistics of France: Challenges for Multivariable Spatial Analysis |journal=Statistical Science |year=2007 |volume=22 |issue=3 |publisher=Institute of Mathematical Statistics |doi=10.1214/07-STS241 |arxiv=0801.4263 |s2cid=13536171 }}</ref> and LΓ©on Louis Lalanne by 1830.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Leland |title=The Grammar of Graphics |date=28 January 2006 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |page=209 |isbn=9780387286952 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NRyGnjeNKJIC&pg=PA209 |access-date=26 April 2022}}</ref> Nightingale called a compilation of such diagrams a "coxcomb", but later that term would frequently be used for the individual diagrams.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/small.htm |title=Publication explaining Nightingale's use of 'coxcomb' |access-date=19 August 2014 |archive-date=26 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141126012626/http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/small.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> She made extensive use of coxcombs to present reports on the nature and magnitude of the conditions of medical care in the Crimean War to [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Members of Parliament]] and civil servants who would have been unlikely to read or understand traditional statistical reports. In 1859, Nightingale was elected the first female member of the [[Royal Statistical Society]].<ref>{{cite web |title=About us |url=http://www.rss.org.uk/RSS/About/About_the_RSS/RSS/About_the_RSS/About_top.aspx?hkey=679e724a-2a6c-4325-922b-8ac53b9b696a |website=Royal Statistical Society |access-date=26 October 2017 |archive-date=27 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027024716/http://www.rss.org.uk/RSS/About/About_the_RSS/RSS/About_the_RSS/About_top.aspx?hkey=679e724a-2a6c-4325-922b-8ac53b9b696a |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1874 she became an honorary member of the [[American Statistical Association]].<ref>Norman L. Johnson, Samuel Kotz (2011). Leading Personalities in Statistical Sciences: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present". p. 314. John Wiley & Sons.</ref> [[File:Nightingale-mortality.jpg|thumb|right|"''[[polar area diagram|Diagram]] of the causes of mortality in the army in the East''" by Florence Nightingale]] Her attention turned to the health of the British Army in [[India]] and she demonstrated that bad drainage, contaminated water, overcrowding, and poor ventilation were causing the high death rate.<ref>Professional Nursing Practice: Concepts and perspective, Koernig & Hayes, sixth edition, 2011, p. 100.</ref> Following the report ''The Royal Commission on India'' (1858β1863), which included drawings done by her cousin, artist [[Bonham Carter family|Hilary Bonham Carter]], with whom Nightingale had lived,{{efn|[many letters were written by Nightingale to her cousin Hilary Bonham-Carter] ... Royal Commission on India (1858β1863) ... feeling that her cousin was neglecting her art, [Nightingale] made Hilary Bonham Carter leave ... the Indian embroidery belonged to dear Hilary ...<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mc Donald |first1=L. |title=Florence Nightingale: An Introduction to Her Life and Family: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2dJ0CwAAQBAJ&q=hilary+bonham+carter+florence+nightingale++indian&pg=PA37 |access-date=8 August 2019 |pages=36, 37, 429, 449, etc. |isbn=9780889207042 |date=28 January 2010 |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press |archive-date=10 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310015804/https://books.google.com/books?id=2dJ0CwAAQBAJ&q=hilary+bonham+carter+florence+nightingale++indian&pg=PA37 |url-status=live }}</ref>}} Nightingale concluded that the health of the army and the people of India had to go hand in hand and so campaigned to improve the sanitary conditions of the country as a whole.<ref name="BBC 2017"/> Nightingale made a comprehensive statistical study of [[sanitation]] in Indian rural life and was the leading figure in the introduction of improved medical care and public health service in India. In 1858 and 1859, she successfully lobbied for the establishment of a Royal Commission into the Indian situation. Two years later, she provided a report to the commission, which completed its own study in 1863. "After 10 years of sanitary reform, in 1873, Nightingale reported that mortality among the soldiers in India had declined from 69 to 18 per 1,000".<ref name=Cohen1984/>{{rp|page=107}} The Royal Sanitary Commission of 1868β1869 presented Nightingale with an opportunity to press for compulsory sanitation in private houses. She lobbied the minister responsible, [[James Stansfeld]], to strengthen the proposed Public Health Bill to require owners of existing properties to pay for connection to mains drainage.<ref>{{cite book |title=Florence Nightingale on Public Health Care |last=McDonald |first=Lynn |pages=550}}</ref> The strengthened legislation was enacted in the Public Health Acts of 1874 and 1875. At the same time, she combined with the retired sanitary reformer [[Edwin Chadwick]] to persuade Stansfeld to devolve powers to enforce the law to Local Authorities, eliminating central control by medical technocrats.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sir John Simon, 1816β1904 |last=Lambert |first=Royston |publisher=McGibbon & Kee |year=1963 |pages=521β523}}</ref> Her Crimean War statistics had convinced her that non-medical approaches were more effective given the state of knowledge at the time. Historians now believe that both drainage and devolved enforcement played a crucial role in increasing average national life expectancy by 20 years between 1871 and the mid-1930s during which time medical science made no impact on the most fatal epidemic diseases.<ref name=Constable1998/><ref name="Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses (1914)"/><ref>{{cite journal |title=The Importance of Social Intervention in Britain's Mortality Decline c. 1850β1914 |last=Szreter |first=Simon |journal=Soc. Hist. Med. |volume=1 |year=1988 |page=1037}}</ref> === Literature and the women's movement === Historian of science [[I. Bernard Cohen]] argues: {{cquote| Nightingale's achievements are all the more impressive when they are considered against the background of social restraints on women in Victorian England. Her father, William Edward Nightingale, was an extremely wealthy landowner, and the family moved in the highest circles of English society. In those days, women of Nightingale's class did not attend universities and did not pursue professional careers; their purpose in life was to marry and bear children. Nightingale was fortunate. Her father believed women should be educated, and he personally taught her Italian, Latin, Greek, philosophy, history, and β most unusual of all for women of the time β writing and mathematics.<ref name=Cohen1984/>{{rp|page=98}} }} [[Lytton Strachey]] was famous for his book debunking 19th-century heroes, ''[[Eminent Victorians]]'' (1918). Nightingale gets a full chapter, but instead of debunking her, Strachey praised her in a way that raised her national reputation and made her an icon for English feminists of the 1920s and 1930s.<ref>James Southern, [https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/article-abstract/28/1/1/2525313 "A Lady 'in Proper Proportions'? Feminism, Lytton Strachey, and Florence Nightingale's Reputation, 1918β39"]. ''Twentieth Century British History'' 28.1 (March 2017): 1β28. {{doi|10.1093/tcbh/hww047}}. {{PMID|28922795}}.</ref> While better known for her contributions in the nursing and mathematical fields, Nightingale is also an important link in the study of English [[feminism]]. She wrote some 200 books, pamphlets and articles throughout her life.<ref name="Express"/> During 1850 and 1852, she was struggling with her self-definition and the expectations of an upper-class marriage from her family. As she sorted out her thoughts, she wrote ''Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth''. This was an 829-page, three-volume work, which Nightingale had printed privately in 1860, but which until recently was never published in its entirety.<ref name=Calabria&Macrae1994>{{cite book |year=1994 |author=Nightingale, Florence |editor1=Calabria, Michael D. |editor2=MacRae, Janet A. |title=Suggestions for Thought: Selections and Commentaries |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1501-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CHcm-2Zm5DQC&q=%22suggestions+for+thought%22 |access-date=6 July 2010 |archive-date=10 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310015556/https://books.google.com/books?id=CHcm-2Zm5DQC&q=%22suggestions+for+thought%22 |url-status=live }}</ref> An effort to correct this was made with a 2008 publication by [[Wilfrid Laurier University]], as volume 11<ref name=McDonald2008>{{cite book |year=2008 |orig-year=1860 |editor-last=McDonald |editor-first=Lynn |first=Florence |last=Nightingale |title=Suggestions for Thought |series=Collected Works of Florence Nightingale |volume=11 |place=Ontario, Canada |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press |isbn=978-0-88920-465-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mle5Sjixa0cC&q=McDonald++%22suggestions+for+thought%22 |access-date=6 July 2010 |archive-date=10 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310015555/https://books.google.com/books?id=Mle5Sjixa0cC&q=McDonald++%22suggestions+for+thought%22 |url-status=live }}</ref> of a 16 volume project, the ''Collected Works of Florence Nightingale''.<ref name=WLUPress>{{cite book |title=Collected Works of Florence Nightingale |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press |url=http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Series/CWFN.shtml |access-date=6 July 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927174908/http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Series/CWFN.shtml |archive-date=27 September 2011}}</ref> The best known of these essays, called "Cassandra", was previously published by [[Ray Strachey]] in 1928. Strachey included it in ''The Cause'', a history of the women's movement. Apparently, the writing served its original purpose of sorting out thoughts; Nightingale left soon after to train at the Institute for deaconesses at [[Kaiserswerth]]. "Cassandra" protests the over-feminisation of women into near helplessness, such as Nightingale saw in her mother's and older sister's lethargic lifestyle, despite their education. She rejected their life of thoughtless comfort for the world of social service. The work also reflects her fear of her ideas being ineffective, as were [[Cassandra]]'s. Cassandra was a princess of [[Troy]] who served as a priestess in the temple of [[Apollo]] during the [[Trojan War]]. The god gave her the gift of [[prophecy]]; when she refused his advances, he cursed her so that her prophetic warnings would go unheeded. [[Elaine Showalter]] called Nightingale's writing "a major text of English feminism, a link between [[Mary Wollstonecraft|Wollstonecraft]] and [[Virginia Woolf|Woolf]]".<ref>Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. "Florence Nightingale". ''The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English''. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. 836β837.</ref> Nightingale was initially reluctant to join the Women's [[Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom|Suffrage Society]] when asked by [[John Stuart Mill]], but through [[Josephine Butler]] was convinced 'that women's enfranchisement is absolutely essential to a nation if moral and social progress is to be made'.<ref>{{Cite news|date=27 August 1910|title=Miss Nightingale β Suffragist|page=207|work=The Vote|url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:muj439pan/read/single#page/2/mode/1up|access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref> In 1972, the poet [[Eleanor Ross Taylor]] wrote "Welcome Eumenides", a poem written in Nightingale's voice and quoting frequently from Nightingale's writings.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Eleanor Ross |title=Welcome, Eumenides |url=https://archive.org/details/welcomeeumenides00elea |url-access=registration |year=1972 |publisher=George Braziller |location=New York|isbn=9780807606445 }}</ref> [[Adrienne Rich]] wrote that "Eleanor Taylor has brought together the waste of women in society and the waste of men in wars and twisted them inseparably."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rich |first1=Adrienne |title=On Lies, Secrets, and Silence |url=https://archive.org/details/onliessecretssil00rich |url-access=registration |year=1979 |publisher=W. W. Norton|location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/onliessecretssil00rich/page/87 87]|isbn=9780393012330 }}</ref> === Theology === Despite being named as a Unitarian in several older sources, Nightingale's own rare references to conventional Unitarianism are mildly negative. She remained in the [[Church of England]] throughout her life, albeit with unorthodox views. Influenced from an early age by the [[Wesleyanism|Wesleyan tradition]],{{efn|Her parents took their daughters to both Church of England and Methodist churches.{{Citation needed|date=January 2020}} }} Nightingale felt that genuine religion should manifest in active care and love for others.{{efn|Nightingale's rare references to Unitarianism are mildly negative, and while her religious views were heterodox, she remained in the Church of England throughout her life. Her biblical annotations, private journal notes, and translations of the mystics give quite a different impression of her beliefs, and these do have a bearing on her work with nurses, and not only at Edinburgh, but neither [Cecil(ia) Woodham-]Smith nor [her] followers consulted their sources."<ref>{{cite book |first=Lynn |last=McDonald |title=Florence Nightingale: Extending nursing |page=11}}{{Full citation needed|date=January 2020}}</ref>}} She wrote a work of theology: ''Suggestions for Thought'', her own [[theodicy]], which develops her [[Heterodoxy|heterodox]] ideas. Nightingale questioned the goodness of a God who would condemn souls to hell and was a believer in [[universal reconciliation]] β the concept that even those who die without being saved will eventually make it to heaven.{{efn|While this has changed by the 21st century, ''[[universal reconciliation]]'' was very far from being mainstream in the [[Church of England]] at the time.}} She would sometimes comfort those in her care with this view. For example, a dying young prostitute being tended by Nightingale was concerned she was going to hell and said to her "Pray God, that you may never be in the despair I am in at this time". The nurse replied "Oh, my girl, are you not now more merciful than the God you think you are going to? Yet the real God is far more merciful than any human creature ever was or can ever imagine."<ref name="NightingaleonMysticism"/><ref name="NightingaleonWomen" />{{efn|"Certainly the worst man would hardly torture his enemy, if he could, forever. Unless God has a scheme that every man is to be saved forever, it is hard to say in what He is not worse than man. For all good men would save others if they could."<ref>{{cite book |year=2002 |title=Florence Nightingale's Theology: Essays, Letters and Journal Notes |series=Collected Works of Florence Nightingale |author=Nightingale, Florence |editor=McDonald, Lynn |volume=3 |page=18 |place=Ontario, Canada |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press |isbn=978-0-88920-371-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VcNoBNcV0XsC&q=%22nightingale's+theology%22 |access-date=6 July 2010 |archive-date=10 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310015846/https://books.google.com/books?id=VcNoBNcV0XsC&q=%22nightingale's+theology%22 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}{{efn|Although not formally a Universalist by church membership, she had come of a Universalist family, was sympathetic to the tenets of the denomination, and has always been claimed by it.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Russell E. |title=The Larger Hope: The first century of the Universalist Church in America 1770β1870 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FYPZAAAAMAAJ |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-93384-000-3 |oclc=16690792 |location=Boston, MA |publisher=Unitarian Universalist Association |page=124 |access-date=22 August 2020 |archive-date=21 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210121054913/https://books.google.com/books?id=FYPZAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }} β Regarding the influence of Florence Nightingale on [[Clara Barton]].</ref>}} Despite her intense personal devotion to Christ, Nightingale believed for much of her life that the pagan and eastern religions had also contained genuine revelation. She was a strong opponent of discrimination both against Christians of different denominations and against those of non-Christian religions. Nightingale believed religion helped provide people with the fortitude for arduous good work and would ensure the nurses in her care attended religious services. However, she was often critical of organised religion. She disliked the role the 19th century Church of England would sometimes play in worsening the oppression of the poor. Nightingale argued that secular hospitals usually provided better care than their religious counterparts. While she held that the ideal health professional should be inspired by a religious as well as professional motive, she said that in practice many religiously motivated health workers were concerned chiefly in securing their own salvation and that this motivation was inferior to the professional desire to deliver the best possible care.<ref name="NightingaleonMysticism" /><ref name="NightingaleonWomen" /> 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. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page