This Week's Great Day

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18467, 19 May 1928, Page 18 (Supplement)

This Week's Great Day

Memoiabte Events tn the v historq of the Empire*

By

Charles Corway

MAY 15: BIRTH OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT YEARS AGO, on May 15, IS2O, Florence Nightingale, the noble-hearted woman who revolutionised the profession of nursing throughout the world, was born in the Italian city of Florence, where her parents were then residing. Her father was a wealthy English country squire, and had she so chosen, her life could have been one of luxurious ease: but at an early age she resolved to devote herself to the cause of suffering humanity, and even as a child she ministered to the sick and afflicted poor in the vicinity of her home. When she reached womanhood she turned her back on the social enjoyments of her family and friends, and, after making a careful study of the work of British and European hospitals and reformatories, she took a course of training in scientific nursing and surgical dressing at Fliedner’s famous institution in Germany; In 1853 she was entrusted with the management and re-organisation of the London Home for Sick Governesses, where she found ample opportunities to show her wonderful capabilities. A year later the Crimean War broke out, and in a short time the British nation was intensely stirred by the reports of the terrible sufferings of the sick and wounded soldiers at the front. The Government issued an appeal for trained nurses, and Miss Nightingale, who was one of the first to volunteer, was given plenary powers over all the nurses, with permission to draw upon the Government for whatever money and help she considered necessary. On October 27, 1854, she left England with the first detachment of thirty-seven nurses, many of them ladies of gentle birth like herself, and on November 4 she arrived at the hospital barracks at Scutari. She found that no proper provision had been made for the reception of the sick and wotinded soldiers, or for their maintenance and medical treatment, with the result that the death rate had been extremely high, reaching almost fifty per cent; but .she speedily turned chaos into order, and in a very short time the mortalities were reduced to two per cent. Her sympathy and cheering words did the patients almost as much good as the work of the doctors, and her custom of passing alone through the wards every night, carrying a little lamp, to see that all was well with her charges, brought peace and comfort to the stricken men, who kissed her shadow as it fell across their pillows and murmured a blessing on the woman whom they christened “ The Lady of the Lamp.” She was eventually given charge of all the hospitals on the Bosphorus, and at one time, had over ten thousand men under her care. She remained at her post for nearly two years, and only once relinquished her labour of mercy when she was stricken for a brief period with an attack of fever. All the world rang with her name, and on her return to England she was presented with the sum of £50,000, which had been raised by publiq subscription. She devoted the whole of the money to establish training homes for nurses. Prior to Florence Nightingale's wonderful work in the Crimea the majority of British nurses were of the “ Sairey Gamp” type, but her splendid example led to hosts of well-bred women taking up* scientific nursing as their life’s work, and ever since, that time the nursing profession has attracted to its ranks the best and noblest of our womankind. Her later life was filled with usefulness, and her advice was constantlysought in connection with hospital work, in which she continued to take an active interest until she passed away in 1910 at the age of ninetv. [Copyrighted]