Okay, so she worked hard. So what? I should say that at this point, nursing had cycled from ritualistic warding off of evil spirit with herbs and dancing (prehistoric), and religion based public health code (Mosaic Code), to the rise of the infant stages of suturing (Egypt), and major surgery (India) and public healthcare (India). After that the Roman Catholic Church hyped up charity and community health work so the noblewomen, widows, and nuns began doling out medicine and food. Soon after that, though, the Reformation began in Europe. This was the era of collapse in Europe following the dissension between the Catholics and the Protestants (led by Luther who railed against the indulgences of the clergy). Henry VII eliminated all of the monastic relief programs even with the onslaught of plague and famine. After him, his son, Henry VIII (who chopped off all of his wives' heads), myopically ruled during a very tumultuous time. The nobles avoided the populous, and nurses were mostly prostitutes, criminals, and, of course, the nuns.
This lasted until the 19th century until Nightingale came about. And even then, her family was reticent to have her waste her natural beauty, wit, and social capital on nursing. Nightingale, on the other hand, viewed marriage as a catch 22. She was self-willed, practical, and assertive, which probably didn't go over very well with society at the time. So when she finally became a nurse, and the Crimean War (between France and Russia) broke out, she was the perfect person to seriously revamp the horrific conditions the injured and sick soldiers were dying in. Essentially men were stacked on top of each other (3000-4000 sick and maimed men were shoved into a building made to hold less than half their number) in their own feces and blood, mixed with lice, maggots, and rats (who were presumably eating the feces and the dead). There was no medicine, blankets, water, food, or light, so all the work stopped at night. It sounds as if those men were just thrown inside of this hell to slowly die.
Nightingale swept in, spending her own money to hire the soldier's wives to wash laundry daily. She made repairs, create special, nutritious diets, introduced the idea of friction with hand washing, and asepsis, gave the men mandatory outside time with light and fresh air and clean water. She also tended to their psychosocial needs with a coffeehouse and music and reading. And the best part was, she was meticulous about her book keeping, and using her records, she was able to show a 40% drop in mortality after she applied her theory of the effects of environmental cleanliness on healing. Then, armed with that empirical data, she write letters of criticism to the British army, followed with constructive criticism, like a total boss, and made them change those death traps they considered army hospitals. She owned it, like the strong political activist she was.
And then, as if she hadn't done enough, she established the first nursing school in England, St. Thomas' Hospital of London--the graduates of that institution then went on to supervisor of the first U.S.A. nursing schools: Mass Gen, Bellevue, and New Haven. So, we owe the Italian lady who saved the British army during a war the foundation of our nursing school system.
Tell me you don't feel totally under-accomplished.
References:
Cherry, B., Jacob, S.R. (2014). Contemporary Nursing: Issues, Trends & Management. 6th Ed. (pp. 8-9, 80-83) St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.
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