FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14010, 5 April 1911, Page 3

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Everyone knows of Florence Nightingale a.s the noble, devoted heroine of tho great Crimean "War, and as the pioneer of modern nursinc; but there are few in this country who realise the rare originality and penetration of her mind and the" marvellous insight that her writings show in regard to almost everything broadly affecting the health of mankind.

It was no mere chance that led Mr Sydney Herbert to select a singularly modest, retiring Englishwoman for a groat mission. Ho knew Miss Nightingalo as a lady of independent means, who, in spite of the convention of her timo and social sphere, had been for many years devoting herself to the otudy and practical carrying out of everything then known in Europe as.to tho art of nursing. The fact that her father was an Anglican clergyman had not prevented her placing herself under the Catholic organisation of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and in her researches she found her way among the Moslems of Turkey and Egypt.

All tho world knows of the great barrack hospital at Scutari,' with* its thousands of sick soldiers, who lay huddled together festering in filthy beds or on tho floors, in altogether unspeakable surroundings, suffering and dying more from foul air, bad food, and lack of the most ordinary decencies of life than from the wounds of battle. Everyone knows how Florence Nightingale and her band of Englishwomen faced tho appalling situation, brought order out of chaos, prepared and served decent food, cleansed the Augean stable, lot in light and sunshine by day and pure air always, and how the stricken soldiers roverently kissed the shadow of "the Lady with the Lamp," as she passed during the watches of the night untiringly from bed to bed. All these things aro well known, but there is littlo realisation of how much Florence Nightingale tried to do, apart altogether from hospitals and hospital nursing, in the rest of her long life for the women and people of England, and how much good would have been effected, and how much suffering averted, if her enlightened views as to the training of all girls in the duties of homelife and nursing had been accorded the attention which they would receive to-day if propounded now for the first time — now when the world is beginning to recognise what she saw clearly before tho middle of the Victorian era. It is amazing to find a woman advocating half a century ago views which most people supposo are of quite recent origin, and advocating them in a book, which refers to the foolishness of tho then prevailing habit of wearing crinolines! I feel sure that the following extr.ict from "Notes on Nursing" will be of great interest to my readers: —