Oh my poor men who endured so patiently

My Website Outline

1. What People Know about Ms. Nightingale

2. Florence Nightingale's Background

3. The Crimean War

4. Santa Filomena

5. Timeline

6. Nightingale Pledge

7. Links, Links & More LInks!!!

Florence Nightingale

Links

Common Questions

and

Answers

This link shows the route that Florence and her nurses took to the war zone

This link leads you to an example of the polar-area diagram. It has an explanation of what it was used for.

Polar-Area Diagram

The Florence Nightingale Museum

To see an in depth look at Florence Nightingale go to the following website. (http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/flo2.htm)

May 12, 1820 - August 13, 1910

Student Poll

I did my research on Florence Nightingale by starting out with a poll. I decided to poll some of the students at my college to see what they knew about Ms. Nightingale. Here are the results of that poll:

1. Florence Nightingale is believed by most to be American (Nope! She was British)

2. Most believed that she is still alive (even though she was born in 1820)

3. All believed that she FOUGHT in either the Civil War or the American Revolution (She was a nurse during the Crimean War. She did some advising during the Civil War but no nursing.)

4. Everyone had heard of the "Nightingale Effect" (I did not find this topic in my research and am led to believe that it originated from the movie Back To The Future)

To sum up my poll: Everyone had heard of Florence Nightingale but no one really knew Florence Nightingale. Let us begin...

Florence Nightingale's Background

Florence Nightingale was born in Italy on 12 May 1820 and was named Florence after the city where she was born. Her parents, William Edward and Frances Nightingale were a wealthy couple and they liked to travel. Florence’s father was well educated at Cambridge and taught Florence and her sister at home. Florence proved to be very studious. She excelled at many subjects such as (but not limited to) Latin, French, German, History and Mathematics.

She also grew up to be admired by the family’s social circle. Everyone expected Florence to marry well. From an early age Florence knew that marriage was not for her. She was only seventeen when she heard a “call from God.” During her lifetime, Florence would hear from God several times and she followed what she believed was her calling.

For more of a spiritual insight into Florence Nightingale click here.

The Crimean War

1. The Battle Itself

The Crimean War: an overview

In the years 1854 to 1856, Britain fought its only European war between the ending of the Napoleonic conflict in 1815 and the opening of the Great War in 1914. Although eventually victorious, the British and their French allies pursued the war with little skill and it became a byword for poor generalship and logistical incompetence.

The war began as a quarrel between Russian Orthodox monks and French Catholics over who had precedence at the holy Places in Jerusalem and Nazereth. Tempers frayed, violence resulted and lives were lost. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia demanded the right to protect the Christian shrines in the Holy Land and to back up his claims moved troops into Wallachia and Moldavia (present day Rumania) then part of the Ottoman Turkish empire. His fleet then destroyed a Turkish flotilla off Sinope in the Black Sea. In an early instance of propaganda, British newspaper reports of the action said the Russians had fired at Turkish wounded in the water. Russian domination of Constantinople and the Straits was a perennial nightmare of the British and with the two powers already deeply suspicious of each others intentions in Afghanistan and Central Asia, the British felt unable to accept such Russian moves against the Turks. Louis Napoleon III, emperor of France, eager to emulate the military successes of his uncle Napoleon I and wishing to extend his protection to the French monks in Jerusalem allied himself with Britain. Both countries despatched expeditionary forces to the Balkans. The British was commanded by Lord Raglan, who had last seen action at the Battle of Waterloo; the French by General St. Arnaud and, after his death from cholera, General Canrobert both veterans of France's Algerian wars.

The war began in March 1854 and by the end of the summer, the Franco-British forces had driven the Russians out of Wallachia and Moldavia. The fighting should have ended there, but it was decided that the great Russian naval base at Sevastopol was a direct threat to the future security of the region and in September 1854 the French and British landed their armies on the Crimean peninsula.

From their landing beaches the allies marched southward to invest Sevastopol. On the way they fought their first major battle. At the River Alma, a Russian army tried unsuccessfully to prevent the Allies crossing the river and scaling the heights beyond. The defeated Russians retreated inland and as the siege of Sevastopol began a regrouped Russian army hovered menacingly on the flank of the British army who were using the inlet of Balaklava as its supply harbour. Sevastopol was invulnerable to any kind of seaborne attack and her landward defences were also formidable. Soon the major strongpoints in the defences, the Redan, the little Redan and the Malakoff bastion, would become household words in Britain.

As the British and French prepared their siegeworks the Russian army on the British right flank struck. They were flung back at this the Battle of Balaklava but only with great loss and the near annihilation of the British light cavalry. A further attempt by the Russians resulted in the Battle of Inkerman, a murderous fistfight fought out in a fog so thick that sometimes the troops could only see a few yards ahead. Again the Russians were pushed back. The war settled down to one of spade and artillery as the Allies pushed their trenches nearer the defensive lines of Sevastopol. The winter of 1854-55 brought great misery to the troops, particularly the British as their commisary department was grossly incompetent and for months the men were clothed in rags, cold, hungry and short of everything. The only bright light in this sorry tale of official negligence and stupidity was the work of Florence Nightingale who almost single-handedly drastically cut mortality rates for the Britsh wounded at the hospital in Scutari.

Finally, in early 1856, Sevastapol fell and the war was brought to a conclusion by the Peace of Paris.

excerpt from Alex's Military History Page

I chose Alex's website mainly because of it's depiction of Florence Nightingale. He put a very positive light on her work in the Crimean War. Not everyone shared this positive view of Florence Nightingale's influence at the hospital in Scutari. I myself prefer the romantic view that many held of the "Lady with the Lamp." For a difference of opinion check out my "Lady with the Lamp" link on the right side of the page.

They "Lady with the Lamp" was said to originate from the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I have included that poem later on in the web-site. Click here to go to it now.

2. Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War

In March 1854 Britain, France and Turkey declared war on Russia. The allies defeated the Russians at the battle of the Alma in September but reports in The Times criticized the British medical facilities for the wounded. In response, Sidney Herbert, the Minister at War, who knew Florence Nightingale socially and through her work at Harley Street, appointed her to oversee the introduction of female nurses into the military hospitals in Turkey.

On 4 November 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, a suburb on the Asian side of Constantinople, with the party of 38 nurses. Initially the doctors did not want the nurses there and did not ask for their help, but within ten days fresh casualties arrived from the battle of Inkermann and the nurses were fully stretched. The 'Lady-in-Chief', as Florence was called, wrote home on behalf of the soldiers. She acted as a banker, sending the men's wages home to their families, and introduced reading rooms to the hospital. In return she gained the undying respect of the British soldiers. The introduction of female nurses to the military hospitals was an outstanding success, and to show the nation's gratitude for Florence Nightingale's hard work a public subscription was organized in November 1855. The money collected was to enable Florence Nightingale to continue her reform of nursing in the civil hospitals of Britain.

SANTA FILOMENA

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,--

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened, and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone was spent.

On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

The Atlantic Monthly; November 1857; "Santa Filomena," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; Volume 1, No. 1; pages 22-23.

Timeline

Ms. Nightingale came down with Crimean Fever during the war. She was never healthy again. She lived to be 90 years old. This timeline is a brief summary of her later years. It in no way encompasses everything that Florence Nightingale achieved. For more information visit Country Joe's Website.

1855	Becomes ill with Crimean Fever

1856	July, the war is over, the last patients and nurses leave. Florence goes home to Lea Hurst. She is given many gifts and thank you letters for her service in the Crimean. Upon request she visits Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to talk about her war experiences. They agree upon a need to correct wrongs.
1857	May, the government issues a warrant to establish a "Royal Commission" to investigate the disasters of the Crimean War. This was a kind of independent, high-level committee appointed to look into a problem and recommend changes. Women are not allowed to be on the commission or testify so because she alone knows all, she writes and compiles facts about the war and sends it all to the commission. The Sepoy Rebellion in India calls her attention to sanitation problems in India and she begins a life-long project to sanitize the country. This is the beginning of her illness, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After this period (of collecting facts for the commission) she is reclusive, mostly bed ridden and only sees people by appointment, one at a time. After her return from the Crimean War she never made a public appearance, never attended a public function, never issued a public statement. To help her "sell" her ideas she invents graphs (the "polar-area" diagram), charts and tables which she uses in her notes on the Army and Hospitals. This had never been done before and is common practice now.

From Cecil Woodham Smith: "After February, 1910 she no longer spoke.
The end came on August 13, 1910. She fell asleep about noon and did not wake again.
Burial in Westminster Abbey was declined. She was buried in the family grave at East Wellow, and her coffin was carried by six sergeants of the British Army. Her only memorial is a line on the family tombstone "F. N. Born 1820. Died 1910.' She had lived for ninety years and three months."

The Nightingale Pledge

I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician, in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.

Links & More Links

Links on the left side of the page
1. Question & Answer - anything you wanted to know & more

2. Through the War Zone - Florence and her nurses take a trip through the war area

3.Polar-Area Diagram -Florence's Diagram to dramatize the needless deaths caused by unsanitary conditions and the need for reform

4. Nightingale Museum

Links on the right side of the page

1. Awards and honors that Florence received

2. Dispel the Myth - Some say she's only a legend

3. Florence's Letters & Quotes

2. Memorials

Links that were helpful

1. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REnightingale.htm - This link gives a good description of Florence. It also talks about Mary Seacole and her attempts at helping the British Army.

2. My Nursing Journey.com - http://www.mynursingjourney.com/florencenightingale.shtml - This is a very down-to-earth kind of site. It gives a very interesting synopsis of Ms. Nightingale's personality. The author of this website has a love/hate relationship with Florence Nightingale.

3. http://www.sociology.uoguelph.ca/fnightingale/spirituality/spirituality.htm - This link talks about spirituality being the driving force behind all of Nightingale's work.

Crystal Scroggins, November 9, 2003. This web-page is a research project for my Victorian Lit. class at the University of Texas at Arlington.

More Links

The Order of Merit

Badge of the Nightingale Training School

Follow the following

link to find

Other honors and medals

Dispel the Myth

These are two websites that try and dispel the romantic idea of Florence Nightingale. They focus more on her attempts at reconciling mistakes that were made during her time in the Crimean War

"Lady with the Lamp"

http

"Avenging Angel"

This is a letter that Ms. Nightingale wrote. It was to the family of one of the soldiers who died during her care.

Oh my poor men who endured so patiently. I feel I have been such a bad mother to you to come home and leave you lying in your Crimean grave. Seventy-three percent in eight regiments during six months from disease alone--who thinks of that now? But if I could carry any one point which would prevent any part of the recurrence of this our colossal calamity then I should have been true to the cause of those brave dead.

Florence Nightingale, 1856

Quotes:

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

[1859]

Memorials

A LIVING MEMORIAL TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

THE FOUNDATION ADVANCES THE STUDY OF NURSING AND PROMOTES EXCELLENCE IN NURSING PRACTICE

Nightingale Training School for Nurses

MY FAVORITE LINK

This picture is from Country Joe's Website. He has been the biggest help during my research.