Florence Nightingale. Sophie Olson. Senior Division. Historical Paper. Paper Length: 2166 Words

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1 Florence Nightingale Sophie Olson Senior Division Historical Paper Paper Length: 2166 Words

2 1 Florence Nightingale taught nurses through her writings, experiences, and nursing school, about the importance of sanitation and correct patient care, which made hospital patients stays safer, shorter, and more comfortable. Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy in 1820, and she died in In 1851, she became a nurse and eventually became known as the woman who modernized nursing. To earn that admirable title she had to stand up to the appalling conditions of hospitals, uneducated nurses, gender bias doctors, and the overall lack of knowledge about patient care and sanitation. She was able to overcome these many obstacles because of her work at Crimea, her statistics, her multiple books, hundreds of letters, and her revolutionary nursing school. In the early 1800 s, English hospitals were a place for diseases to flourish and for patients to die. The hospital halls were often tremendously overcrowded, patients were malnourished because of the lack of food, and hospitals often had depleted supplies such as medicine, gauze, and blankets. There were no vessels for water or utensils of any kind; no soap, towels, or clothes, no hospital clothes; the men lying in their uniforms, stiff with gore and covered with filth to a degree and of a kind no one could write about; their persons covered with vermin (Bloy). No sanitation measures had been established because it was not yet known that diseases spr ead more rapidly in crowded, unsanitary environments. Filth was everywhere, patients had little to no access to sunlight, and the ventilation was so meager that the stench of dirt and death built up throughout the hospitals. The lack of sewers and laundering facilities, combined with a disorganized medical service, resulted in the death of one out of every two soldiers (Birth of the nursing profession).

3 2 In 1853, the Crimean War began. Like most military hospitals, the conditions were atrocious and the newspapers started to notice. The military didn t like this negative attention so the Secretary of War brought Florence Nightingale and her coterie of female nurses to the Crimea hospital. She witnessed the awful conditions of the hospital and promptly got to work. She set her nurses to work cleaning the hospital and ensured soldiers were properly fed and clothed. The regular troops were, for the first time, being treated with decency and respect (Bostridge). Ms. Nightingale had every nurse and every willing patient clean the hospital; floor to ceiling. Once the hospital was clean, she set up a kitchen with her own money so the patients would have enough food to eat. Florence made sure that everyone in the hospital was cared for because before her presence at the hospital, the chronically and the mentally ill were often ignored by staff. Those determined to be malingerers and the dying did not meet the criteria for admission (Crane), but she felt that even if a patient was dying they shouldn t be denied basic comforts and necessities such as food, medicine, and cleanliness. Throughout her work at Crimea she took meticulous records and was able to organize detailed statistics about the mortality rates. She discovered that 89 percent of soldier deaths during battle was due to the spread of disease. According to that information, the battlefield was profusely safer place any military hospital. Her most famous statistic was known as the rose diagram. It showed each month s mortality rate over the year she and the Sanitary Commision worked at the Crimean hospital. The diagram indicated that, by the end of the Crimean War the death rate was just one percent ( Birth of the nursing profession). Before Nightingale came the mortality rate was about 50 percent. That means that she reduced the rate to a fiftieth of what it was by using her sanitation and patient care techniques. Because nothing like this had ever been

4 3 seen before, the diagram radiated throughout the country and Nightingale s ideals exploded with popularity. In light of Florence s work, new army medical, sanitary science and statistics departments were established to improve healthcare (Bostridge). Before Florence Nightingale, the nursing career was occupied by elderly, poverty stricken women. Nursing was, and was regarded as, a menial occupation which did not attract women of character; that it was ill-paid and little respected ; that no high standard of efficiency was expected ; and that no training was organized : the women picked up their knowledge in the wards (Cook 419). All of these factors made nurses more harmful to the patients than helpful. Florence Nightingale set out to change this definition of nursing, but to do that she had to stand up to the challenge of educating tens of thousands of women; not all of whom necessarily wanted to change their ways. She did this by writing books and building a school. One of her most well known books was Notes on Nursing: What it is and What it is Not. It gives exact instructions on how a nurse should care for and act around a patient. She tells about the most important needs of the patients such as, fresh air, or of light, or of warmth, or of quiet, or of cleanliness, or of punctuality and care in the administration of diet (Nightingale), and she explains how even the most miniscule of things can hurt the recovery process. A nurse who rustles (I am speaking of nurses professional and unprofessional) is the horror of a patient, though perhaps he does not know why (Nightingale). This book taught thousands of nurses how crucial it was to practice good sanitation because, if she allows her sick to remain unwashed saturated with perspiration or other excretion, she is interfering injuriously with the natural processes of health just as effectually as if she were to give the patient a dose of slow poison by the mouth (Nightingale).

5 4 Her books announced to thousands of nurses how they should handle themselves, but she wanted them to have an even higher level of education. She thought that, to have trained attendants, there must be an organised and established system of instruction, in suitable schools and under competent teachers (Nightingale), so she built the Nightingale Training School, the first nursing school in all of England. She took a personal interest in every student's education, and wrote a series of letters reminding the nurses how imperative it was to stay educated after they graduate: Unless in it we are making progress every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back. The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make. The progress you make in your year's training with us is as nothing to what you must make every year after your year's training is over (Nightingale 1). She made an immense impact on the level of education for nurses in England, but that isn t the only country that was affected by her amazing work. Inspired by Nightingale's founding of the first nursing school, other schools were established in the United States in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut ( Birth of the nursing profession), and every nursing school after them were created because of Florence. She successfully changed the idea of nursing from a respectless, heedless job to the idea that, nurses' work means downright work, in a cheery, happy, hopeful, friendly spirit. An earnest, bright, cheerful woman, without that notion of " making sacrifices," etc., perpetually occurring to her mind, is the real nurse (Nightingale 108). Educating nurses was essential because it meant that the nurses learned how to properly care for the patients, so patients had a much better chance of survival because they were now clean and well fed.

6 5 Florence Nightingale focused the next portion of writing on the overall comfort of the patients, which directly affected how rapidly they recovered. In her book, Notes on Hospitals, she explains how hospitals should be built so they are efficiently keep diseases from spreading and patients from getting worse than when they arrived. She introduced the idea that instead of building a hospital with one long hallway where every room s ventilation is connected and the nurses quarters and administration offices are directly next to the patients room, they should instead be built in a way that, provision of abundant light and ventilation through every part of the hospital in which sick are placed, can only be secured in hospitals of any size by separating the administrative part from the sick part (Nightingale 92). This allowed for better ventilation, and the separation of patient rooms from and nurses quarters reduced the chance of a nurse catching a disease and spreading it to all of her patients. Sanitation of the patient such as, regular linen changing, adequate ventilation, the frequent emptying of chamber pots, and the regular scrubbing of floors and walls (Nightingale), was very important to Florence, but she also cared about the other comforts that the patients usually had to give up while in a hospital. Such comforts included access to sunlight, space, clean water, and education. She wrote her ideas of how to make these comforts obtainable to her patients in multiple books. She wanted no more than one patient per window so they had an abundance of space and sunlight, and she wanted hospitals to have better plumbing so the used water didn t mix with the clean water and endanger the patients health even more. She knew how big of a toll being in the hospital could be on children, so she wanted them to have as normal of a time as possible by having a room in each hospital dedicated to children. For

7 6 example, she indicated that, the gymnastics covered place may also be used as a day room, play-room, and as a school-room (Nightingale 128). Throughout her nursing career she had a countless amount of supporters including almost all of her patients, the new educated nurses, and the rest of England, but many of the people she worked with directly were against her campaign; specifically at Crimea. The older nurses that were working before Florence came around didn t want to conform to her new action plan. They thought that sanitation had nothing to do with the high number of deaths, and Florence s plan meant a lot more work and school they had to go through for no personal reward. Also, the reason the hospitals were often out of medicine was because the nurses stole it to supplement their low pay. When Ms. Nightingale found this out, she of course went to stop it. She proved that the supplies were being stolen by sending her representatives into the Turkish markets to buy back the purloined goods (Gill). She stopped the theft, but that wasn t the end of her difficulties. In the 1800 s, women were nowhere near equal to men, so when Florence Nightingale came into their hospitals with huge plans of saving thousands of lives by cleaning, the male doctors thought that she was incapable of completing such a hu ge task. The male doctors went as far as to say that her success in the hospital wasn t hers at all, but that it was instead their success. In fact, the army released a massive 1637-page report about the medical challenges in Scutari that makes not a single mention of Nightingale or her nurses (Gill). The doctors gave it their all to stop her, but they came nowhere near. She stood up to them with her results and statistics. Before she came, the actual mortality in hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality out of

8 7 hospital would lead us to expect (Nightingale III), and when she left, hospitals were extremely safer than any home medical care. Florence Nightingale stood up against the sanitary nightmare of the hospitals, the lack of clean water, food, medicine, supplies, insufficient ventilation, lack of medical and sanitation advances, gender bias doctors, uneducated nurses, over crowded conditions, and the exceptionally high death rate that was seen as normal. It took decades of work and perseverance, but she succeeded in her goal and taught nurses through her writings, experiences, and nursing school, about the importance of sanitation and correct patient care, which made hospital patients stays safer, shorter, and more comfortable. She made the hospitals sanitary, gave patients clean food and water, educated the nurses about the proper way to care for patients, created a nursing school for even higher education, gave patients comforts such as access to sunlight, fresh clothes and sheets, sinks and tubs, and clean air from proper ventilation. All of these achievements combined made the biggest impact of all; the death rates of hospitals went down drastically and hospitals were no longer a place to catch diseases and die, they were safe and sanitary places you went to get help and recover. She is the reason modern day nursing is the way it is today. Because she stood up to change the conditions of hospitals; she saved millions of people, and her work is still saving thousands of people every day.

9 8 Works Cited Primary Sources Nightingale, Florence. Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses : a Selection from Miss Nightingale's Addresses to Probationers and Nurses of the Nightingale School at St. Thomas's Hospital. Macmillan and Co., 1914, archive.org/details/b This source is Florence Nightingale giving graduates from her nursing school advice on how to be a good nurse and how to mentally handle the job. This source is important because it shows how much she thought that the hospital can only be as good as the nurses working within it. Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Hospitals. Longman & Green, archive.org/details/notesonhospital01nighgoog. This is a writing by Florence Nightingale, explaining the best ways to build a hospital, and the best things to have in a hospital to keep it sanitary, ventilated, and well lit. This source is important because it shows how she is trying to educate people on how to build a hospital so it will be safe for the patients. Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army: Founded Chiefly on the Experience of the Late War. archive.org/details/b This is a piece of writing from Florence Nightingale about the need for order, sanitation, and supplies in all hospitals, but specifically British Military hospitals. I quoted this book in my project because she gives exact instructions on how a hospital can be efficient and

10 9 sanitary at the same time. Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not. D. Appleton & Company, 1898, This is a piece of writing from Florence Nightingale. She explains how nurses should treat their patients, and what sort of things interfere with a patient s healing. I quoted her from this book in my project because she explains how there is more than just sanitation that can interfere with the healing of a patient. Nightingale, Florence. Public Health System Provides Health Care to Rural Areas. 1893, ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/primarysourcesdetailspage This was one of Florence Nightingale s writings about sanitation, specifically the proper removal of waste products, and the effect on the community if it is not removed properly. I quoted this source in my project because she scientifically explains how big of a negative outcome a hospital can have because of the poor sanitation. Secondary sources "Birth of the Nursing Profession." Science and Its Times, edited by Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer, vol. 5, Gale, Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/cv /bic1?u=whit3 7492&xid=5c571bbd. Accessed 10 Jan This source is an article about how the conditions at Crimea were before and after Florence got there, and how much Florence affected the overall profession of nursing. I

11 10 am using this source because it shows how much the hospital changed because of Florence Nightingale. Bloy, Marjie. Florence Nightingale ( ). Florence Nightingale ( ), This source is an overview of Florence Nightingale s life, and how she impacted the Crimean hospital. It shows how highly she thought of educating nurses so they could better treat their patients. Bostridge, Mark. BBC - IWonder - Florence Nightingale: Saving Lives with Statistics. BBC News, BBC, This source is a timeline that shows the most important parts in Florence Nightingale s life, and explains how she battled the problem of unsanitary hospitals. This source explains how hospitals and disease were more deadly to soldiers than the battle field. Cook, Edward. The Life of Florence Nightingale Volume II. Macmillan and Co., 1913, ia us.archive.org/26/items/lifeofflorenceni02cook/lifeofflorenceni02cook_djvu.txt. This is the second volume of a set of books about the life of Florence Nightingalespecifically her work in sanitizing Indian and British hospitals. This source is important because it shows how much hospitals changed and how much safer the patients were because of Nightingale s work. Cook, Edward. The Life of Florence Nightingale Volume I. Macmillan and Co., 1913, ia us.archive.org/18/items/lifeofflorenceni01cookuoft/lifeofflorenceni01cookuoft_ djvu.txt

12 11 This source is the first volume of a book written about Florence Nightingale s life. It describes how she got into nursing, what she did as a nurse, and how she became known as the woman who invented modern day nursing. This source is important because it shows how many people Nightingale affected with her work. Crane, Patrick. The Voice of Florence Nightingale on Advocacy. The Voice of Florence Nightingale on Advocacy, nursingworld.org/mainmenucategories/anamarketplace/anaperiodicals/ojin/tableo fcontents/vol /no1-jan-2012/florence-nightingale-on-advocacy.html#scott. This source is an article about the different types of things Florence Nightingale advocated for, such as educated nurses, and equal treatments for everyone. I am using this source because it shows how unlike most nurses, Florence thought that the mentally ill and people who are going to die in the near future should still be treated. Florence Nightingale Facts Summary Information. British Heritage Travel, britishheritage.com/florence-nightingale/. This source is an article about Florence Nightingale s greatest achievements that improved British hospitals, and overall sanitation. It also talks about the awards she received for her work, and how much of an influence she was in the whole Northern hemisphere. I used this source because it shows how many hospitals changed because of her work. Florence Nightingale, Open Collections Program: Contagion, Florence Nightingale, , ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/nightingale.html. This source is an article about Nightingale s role as a nurse, and her advocacy for

13 12 sanitation. It also gave a list of her writings that dealt with sanitation in hospitals. I used this source because it showed how big of an issue sanitation was in hospitals. Gill, Christopher J., and Gillian C. Gill. Nightingale in Scutari: Her Legacy Reexamined. Clinical Infectious Diseases Oxford Academic, Oxford University Press, 15 June 2005, academic.oup.com/cid/article/40/12/1799/314039/nightingale-in-scutari-her-legacy-re examined. This source is an article that described Florence Nightingale s life before becoming a nurse and her work in Crimea. This source is important because it describes how not everyone supported her because her ideas made their jobs as nurses and doctors more work and they could no longer neglect their job of feeding and cleaning the patients. Grant, Susan Mary. New Light on The Lady with the Lamp: Susan-Mary Grant Looks at Florence Nightingale's Influence on Medical Care in the Crimea and the US Civil War. Biography in Context, ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/academicjournalsdetailspage. This source is an article about how awful the conditions were in Military hospitals during wars before Nightingale, and how they were so unsanitary that you had a greater chance of surviving on the battlefield than in the hospital. This source is important because the statistics Florence gathered on the subject proved to everyone how much sanitation matters.