Florence Nightingale is known as the founder of modern nursing. She was the daughter of a well-to-do family in England. She was born in Florence, Italy on 12 May 1820. By the time she was 12, she was determined to ‘do something worthwhile’. She wanted to look after the sick, and used every spare minute to learn from nursing books she had secretly obtained. She also visited hospitals in London, and the surrounding area.
Her parents tried to get her to change her mind, but she was adamant about becoming a nurse. She was an excellent student, and after her graduation, she returned to London, and got a job running a hospital.
During the Crimean War, she was put in charge of nursing. She went to the battlefield with 38 nurses, cleaned up the huge, dirty old building that served as a hospital, and managed somehow or the other to get urgently needed supplies. Through her efforts, thousands of lives were saved. At night, she would visit the sick and the injured, carrying a lamp, and so she became known as ‘the lady with the lamp’. She will always be remembered for the fact that she changed the face of nursing from a mostly untrained profession to a highly skilled and well-respected medical profession, with very important responsibilities.
