THE LADY OF THE LAMP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE LADY OF THE LAMP.

WHAT WE OWE TO HER.

AN ADMIRING NATION. Recently, was celebrated the birthday of Florence Nightingale, that great Englishwoman who may be said to have invented the modern art of nursing the sick. Before her time nursing was left to tho most unsuitable people, and all tho skill and care and sympathy and cleanliness that now mark nursing were unknown. It is doubtful if any other woman has ev< r done so much for tho world as Florence Nightingale. She was no ordinary woman. Born of rich parents and highly educated, she was expected to live a life of luxury. When, after travelling in Europe, she decided to set a new ideal in the care of the sick, her parents were shocked. Then came tho Crimean War, when wounded British soldiers, without comfort and without care, died like flies in the hospital at Scutari. The news came to England. " Tho entire British Army is perishing," and thon roso Florence Nightingale. In spite of opposition, she moved the War Office to send her out, and took with her thirty-seven nurses. Everything was chaos, but Florence Nightingale was a woman of iron will and fierce determination.

She herself, scrubbed floors like a charwoman. She made herself an expert ratcatcher, and cleared the hospital of vermin. She persuaded, she bullied, sho acted, and for the first time in history a military hospital became a real place of healing for the wounded. And then, when she came home and an admiring nation collected £40,000 for her to spend in any way she liked, she gave it all to found the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas's Hospital, for tho training of skilled nurses.