Father, William, and mother, Fanny, were of aristocratic lineage. In England, they owned two homes: Incline Villa and Emberley Gardens. Every summer, the scorching sun, their family like migratory birds, non-stop to the "YinYue villa" summer; and in the rest of the year, they live in the garden of Embry-Riddle. In the spring and fall, the family was busy visiting friends and relatives in nearby London. Little Florence's childhood was spent in heavenly surroundings.
But, strangely enough, her excitement was often not with her little friends. She loved riding ponies and talking and playing with the kittens, puppies and birds around her. She delights in taking care of them. Once, when a little tit died, she wrapped the bird in a handkerchief and buried it under a pine tree in the garden, and put up a little tombstone with an epitaph on it-
Poor little tit/why did you die/the crown on your head/was so beautiful//but now/you lie there/ignoring me! / Unheeding
Since she was a little girl, she kept to herself and was not as mischievous as the average child. She was stubborn and obstinate, sentimental and seemed overly precocious. She grew up alone in the midst of all the bustle.
Emberley's garden was prosperous, but outside it was in a state of devastation: in 1842, England was economically depressed, and starvation was everywhere. Florence wrote in her notes: No matter what time, my heart, always can not let go of those suffering people ......
July 1843, it is the hot season, Nightingale's family once again to the Villa YinYue summer summer when she defied her family's objections to go to help the poor around. She was not afraid of filth and suffering, and spent more and more of her time in the huts of the sick. Because many of the sick lacked food and clothing, she often insisted that her mother give her some medicine, food, sheets, bedding, clothes, etc. She used these for the relief of the poor. These she used for the relief of the poor, in order to relieve their immediate needs. When it was time to return to Emperley Gardens, Florence did not want to stop halfway, she wanted to stay in the area. But her mother argued that a daughter of nobility should be doing something else, and that wasting time nursing the poor was absurd. Her father and sister also sided with her. Florence was alone.
In the British mindset at the time, dealing with patients of all kinds was dirty and dangerous. People shied away from words like "hospital" and "nursing" because they were horrible, humiliating things. Due to the backwardness of medical standards, coupled with the decline of the country and the frequent wars, in England after 1844, hospitals were almost synonymous with misfortune, degradation, sloppiness and chaos. Lacking the necessary management, it sometimes resembled nothing less than a madhouse. In Florence's view, the most unacceptable thing was not the terrible medical conditions, but the bad reputation of the hospital "nurses" and their low quality.
In August 1845, Florence traveled with her father to Manchester to visit her sick grandmother. She stayed with her grandmother to nurse her as she became more ill, bedridden and lacking in care. Soon, her grandmother's health improved considerably. Then Mrs. Gale, the old nanny, fell ill again. Florence rushed back to the house and nursed the very sick Mrs. Gale with great care. Florence stayed at her bedside until her death.
In the fall of that year, when the plague struck the countryside near Emporium Gardens, Florence, along with the local pastor, took an active role in caring for the sick. She was proving herself over and over again, and her faith in life grew stronger.
In those days, nursing was thought to be a simple job that required no training at all. Even Florence herself used to think that being patient and compassionate was all that was needed to help patients get better, and that was all nursing was about. One day, she witnessed a woman, dying in agony in front of her. This patient had taken the wrong medication. "She was bound to die in peace; the caregivers had 'poisoned' her!" This thought struck her as a great revelation. She knew from then on that nursing was an important discipline. She had no choice but to learn about it if she was to realize her ambitions.
A few miles from Emperley Gardens, there was a dispensary where the attending physician, Mr. Fuller, was of some repute, said to be a graduate of Oxford University, and an old friend of the Nightingale family. So Florence intended to persuade her parents to give her some time to study at this clinic. When Mr. and Mrs. Fuller were invited to be guests at Emperley Gardens, she offered to study under Fuller in front of her parents.
A storm broke out. The father left; the mother went mad, saying she couldn't stand the idea any longer; and the sister shouted hysterically that her sister must be "possessed" - not only was it beneath the aristocracy, but it would also bring germs into the house and kill the whole family.
The Fullers were embarrassed. In order to appease the Nightingales, they had to "pour cold water" on Florence and persuade her to give up her idea.
Under great mental pressure, she gritted her teeth and did not give in. She began to secretly study hospital reports and government blue books. She also wrote privately to foreign experts (such as the Prussian ambassadors, Mr. and Mrs. Benson), asking them for advice on various issues. And, from time to time, she asked for surveys on the hospital situation in the cities of Paris and Berlin. Every morning she studied for at least an hour or more. When the breakfast bell rang, she would quickly gather up her books and go downstairs to dinner as if nothing had happened, looking regular and trying not to mention her inner thoughts. Her mother put her in charge of organizing the pantry, the pantry, and the stash of clothes, and she did not dare to slow down in the least. She hoped that her mother would come around. She wrote to her friend, Miss Clark, "I have had to do a lot of housework. The coats, glasses, and china are buried up to my chin. They are simply tedious. And I can't help asking myself, 'Is this life?' Is this what a reasonable person, a person willing to make a difference, wants to do every day?'"
She also received an olive branch of love. At a party, she befriends Richard, a young philanthropist (it was from his proposal to separate juvenile offenders from adults to receive more reasonable and humane corrections). Richard fell in love with her at first sight, and the two of them talked about poetry and paintings and had a pleasant relationship. Richard's countless letters were a great source of spiritual comfort to Florence in her time of loneliness and helplessness, and she once referred to him as "the man I admire." However, when he proposed, she thought long and hard about it, but refused him. She wrote to Richard: I am destined to be a wanderer. For the sake of my vocation, I would rather have no marriage, no society, no money.
Florence had exuded an attitude of pursuing a life of celibacy in a letter, while talking about her own views on marriage: 'The prevailing prejudice is that, in the final analysis, one has to get married, that it is the inevitable destination. However, I ultimately feel that marriage is not the only thing. It is entirely possible for a person to find greater pleasure in her career, in making herself feel fulfilled and satisfied." She has since turned down all suitors.
At Florence's request, Sir Benson sent her a book, The Annals of the Women of Christian Charity at Caesar Watts. The book described Kaiserwurz's advanced philosophy in nursing and about the situation.
She read it carefully and was overjoyed. As a charitable medical institution, Kaiserwurz was exactly the place she had dreamed of for years. It was a place where she could be properly trained in all aspects of her profession, and where the religious atmosphere and the strict rules were a "shield" to protect the nurse's reputation from public criticism.
But she did not dare to ask her parents to go directly to Caesar's Wards, and took advantage of her convalescence to go first to Frankfurt, which was at that time at the forefront of nursing in the world. At a dispensary she learned a number of useful things. Two weeks later, she left feeling qualified to be a certified caregiver.
When her parents and sister found out that she had been "thieving" at nursing and was studying medicine privately, they all shook with anger. They joined forces to punish her, making her "shut up" and not allowed to leave the house.
She was at war with her family for years. Time flew, and on June 8, 1851, Florence wrote in her notes, with unprecedented firmness, "I must be clear that, by holding out and waiting, opportunities will pass me by in vain. From them, all I would get was a growing conflict. I was clearly not going to get sympathy or support. Should I just sit back and wait? Absolutely not! I must fight on my own for all those things on which I depend. I must take matters into my own hands with regard to the causes that belong to me. My lot in life, my true happiness, depends on my efforts; they will never be gracious with me."
This time, she did "walk the talk and walk the walk". First, she went to Caesar's Wards under the pretext of going out for a break; and after two weeks there, she decided to go again to Frankfurt in order to obtain a more systematic study. She calmly announced her decision to her family; her father was still calm, but her mother and sister, alarmed, again endeavored to prevent it. This time Florence did not budge at all. The three of them had a huge fight. When the father saw that his efforts were ineffective, he became angry and walked out of the house with his shotgun and his dog. After he left, they argued even more. Her mother even tried to slap her, but she deftly dodged it.
The next day, Florence bravely left the house. To the Reverend Siddall Fledner's asylum - an institution that boasted a hospital, a nursery, an orphanage and a school to train schoolgirls.
Florence lived in a small room within the orphanage. She worked at the orphanage and at the Frankfurt Women's Hospital. All the work she learned to do, she refused to be left behind at all, even surgical care she attended. This was very hard for her. After all, at that time, it was completely "unseemly" for an aristocratic woman. She understood that, but she didn't care.
During this time, she wrote several letters home about her situation and her desire to reconnect with her family. On her 32nd birthday, she thanked her family for their well wishes and wrote a special letter to her father, Verne. It read:
"Although it is true that I am not young, I will nevertheless be more persistent in exercising my vocation. Indeed, I am happy that I have finally regained my freedom. My unfortunate adolescence is behind me, and I don't hold on to it much. It will never return, and I rejoice in that because it means that I will have a new life."
■Dignified and generous, with a molded ambition
One day in 1837, Nightingale felt she heard the voice of God asking her to fulfill a mission. From an early age, she used to care for the sick and disabled in nearby villages and nursed her relatives to relieve the suffering of the sick. Her parents objected to her becoming a nurse, believing it to be a breach of family honor. But feudalism and social influence never made her lose faith in nursing.
Young Nightingale often assisted her father's old friend (a doctor) to take good care of patients, and gradually became interested in nursing. She traveled to Germany, France, Greece and other places to study the hospitals and charitable organizations in these countries, enriching her readings and strengthening her determination to pursue a career in nursing. She studied nursing on her own and participated actively in discussions with medical societies on issues such as social welfare, children's education, and the improvement of hospital facilities.
Because of her family's wealth, Florence Nightingale's early years were extremely prosperous. The people they interacted with were also prominent members of society, including politicians, literary writers, artists, and local gentlemen of the time. This enabled her to enjoy the comfort of the Victorian era to the fullest. But in Nightingale's little mind, the face of this kind of pampered life and do not feel happy, she Maine canon shy, do not want to see the stranger, often have a kind of inexplicable sense of silence. At the age of twelve, she studied Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, history, mathematics and philosophy with her father. Under her father's guidance, Nightingale made great progress in her studies. She often read aloud with her father, talking, when her father traveled, they exchanged feelings with letters. 1837, the family traveled to the European continent, the parents used the group of daughters in Europe to grow in all parts of the world to see. At this time with the Gale has been seventeen years old, Yiran became a beautiful big home show. Their family spent a year and a half, traveling around France, Italy, Switzerland, along the way to see the lakes and mountains, art monuments, and everywhere to investigate the social conditions. Nightingale from a young age has developed the habit of remembering things and writing a diary, what they saw and heard, are - a record, which has become an important information for her future schooling and governance. She met some famous people in France and socialized with famous women who were engaged in social activities. She took a keen interest in politics and the public, and was particularly attentive to charitable organizations. Since she was a teenager, she had this self-belief in the service of mankind and a strong will to help the world.
After traveling on the European continent, she found the care in hospitals to be extremely poor, and felt that Britain needed a hospital like the one at St. Vincent de Paul in France. She felt that there was a need in Britain for nuns to care for the sick, as in the case of St. Vincent de Paul's Home of Mercy in France. Nursing began to germinate in her mind, she wanted to be a nurse! The image of nurses in England at that time was that of crude, aging women who were ignorant, foolish and incapable of performing medical tasks. Nightingale's choice of this work seemed to her mother simply incredible!
In 1839, the family returned to the United Kingdom, by this time Nightingale has emerged as a dignified and generous, often in the family will be my socialites, very much the world's attention and appreciation. She particularly enjoyed the company of social workers and innovators from all walks of life, including a well-known physician who worked in the county's Longleesbury and inspired her to study at the hospital.
The wards in hospitals at that time were mostly one big uniform room, with beds close together, very crowded, the walls and floors covered in blood and stains, and the stench was intolerable to those who came in. Such deplorable conditions abound everywhere, and there is not much difference. Once an American physician, Dr. Samuel B. Hao, came to her home as a writer. Hao to her home writer, Nightingale asked him to consult on the views of nurses, Dr. Hao praised her ideas, and encouraged her to persevere in her efforts, but ultimately difficult to obtain parental approval. During this time, justinger for catering to the hearts of parents, one side of the study, absorb the new knowledge about health, one side of the arrangement in the parents, to participate in some social activities, and met two extremely intimate boyfriends. One was her cousin Henry Nicholson; the other was Charles Mains. Their advances, however, were both rejected by Nightingale. She decided to be celibate! What a remarkable decision this was at the time, and she resolved to dedicate herself to nursing! She described her feelings at the time in detail in her diary, word for word and tear for tear. Mains went on to become a member of Parliament and a lifelong supporter of Nightingale's cause. At the beginning of 1848, she was in Rome, I will be Hildeuer Hebert, this gentleman is handsome and elegant, refined, a style of English gentleman. Hebert and Nightingale at first sight, and maintain a noble friendship throughout his life, and later he elected to become Minister of War, Nightingale's cause to give support.
October 1849, she once again traveled with friends to Egypt, crossing the sea to Greece; the following year in April, arrived in Athens. On May 12, 1850, her thirtieth birthday, Nightingale wrote in her diary: "Today I am thirty years old, the age at which Jesus Christ began to preach. From now on there should be no more childish behavior. No more thoughts of love and marriage. Only let me think according to God's will and act according to His plan. She felt that it was her God-given responsibility to devote herself to nursing!
■Founding a nursing clinic and volunteering to save lives
In her time, no one of stature was a nurse. Those who were nurses were often ignorant, rude, alcoholic, untrained women. She took advantage of traveling to Europe to learn about nursing everywhere. She finally chose the Catherwolds Hospital, which she had learned about, and attended a short four-month training course there in 1851, making her dream of studying nursing finally come true. During her studies, she experienced first-hand the hard work that nursing requires to relieve patients' pain and give them spiritual comfort. 1844 saw her set off from England on a tour of the European continent, covering France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and other countries, and visiting hospitals in various countries, and in 1850, despite her family's objections, she went to Kaisersführerstrasse, Germany to receive her nursing training. Her talents were discovered, and in 1853 she was employed as superintendent of the London Nursing Association for Sick Women.
Sandinger's ambition finally moved her father to promise to fund her with five hundred pounds a year. And on August 12, 1853, in the Charity Commission under the funding, Nightingale in London Harley Street, No. 1, set up a nursing home, began to carry out her ambitions, she took a number of measures, so that people at the time breathtaking. She adopted the patient's call bell, set up a winch in the kitchen to carry meals to the sick, and emphasized that "any woman, regardless of creed, rich or poor, who is ill, can be taken in. ......" She showed remarkable ability in her work, and everyone obeyed her.
August 1854, cholera in the slums of suburban London, Nightingale, regardless of personal safety, volunteered to participate in emergency ambulance work. She spent her days running around the hospital tending to dying patients, many of whom died in her arms. Mrs. Caskell on Nightingale's righteousness is highly esteemed, because she personally experienced and felt the spirit of Nightingale's dedication, she describes: "She is tall, slim and slender; a head of brown dense short hair; white and fine complexion; grey eyes flashing melancholy depressed look, but sometimes show waves of happiness, it is really unforgettable; her teeth are beautiful and tidy and a sweet smile. Her head was covered with a long, soft scarf of hair, tied up along the corners, which set off her white, quiet, melon-faced face with even greater beauty. She often wears a black silk material long shirt, plus a black shawl, giving people a graceful and elegant. The impression of being generous...."
■The Goddess of the Lamplighters, Righteousness
In 1853, the Crimean War broke out between Turkey, Britain, France and other countries and Russia.In March 1854, Britain and France formally declared war on Russia in order to aid Turkey.In September, British and French allied forces landed in the Crimea, and in the reports that were sent back from the front, they were quite opinionated about the fact that no one was taking care of the wounded soldiers. The report said that there were nuns to take care of the wounded in France and the Sisters of Mercy in Russia, so why were there no nuns to take care of the wounded in Britain! Moreover, the medical care provided by the British army was very poor. The death rate of the wounded was 42%.
When these facts were revealed to the press, there was an outcry. When Nightingale heard the news, she immediately wrote a letter to the then Minister of War, Mrs. Hébert, offering to lead forty nurses at her own expense to help the wounded in the field. For a 35-year-old woman at the time, this was a very daunting challenge. At that time, female nurses, known as "Sisters", had long been in existence in the advanced countries of Europe, but Britain, because of religious and social stereotypes, had always been opposed to the presence of female nurses in hospitals, especially in war hospitals. on October 15, Minister Hébert acceded to her request and sent a letter back to Florence Nightingale, inviting her to to lead a group of nurses to Scutari, to be appointed by the government and given financial support. Nightingale agreed, and five days later the government made her head of the Women's Nursing Corps at the British General Hospital in Turkey. The corps consisted of thirty-eight members, of whom fourteen were professional nurses selected by the hospitals and twenty-four by the religious orders, and on October 21st they hastily dressed for the journey. Arriving at Scutari on November 4, they were immediately put to busy work.
Initially, the doctors, based on traditional perceptions and jealousy, advocated that they should not be allowed to enter the ward without a doctor's instruction. They were turned away for four days in a row. In the face of this situation, Nightingale first began to improve the diet of the wounded soldiers, change dirty clothes, *** with the commitment to clean up the work. She y felt that a perfect hospital, there must be adequate water supply and good drainage system. In three months she cleaned 10,000 shirts. In order to accommodate 800 new patients, she paid for emergency repairs to the wards. Nightingale's positive spirit of service finally dissolved the hostility of the military doctors and won the love and trust of the wounded. Night and day, she put all her heart into nursing work, so that the hospital gradually on track, and her office, naturally, has become the center of radiating warmth and love. The site of the British hospital was originally a Turkish garrison barracks, the building was simple and simple, and the equipment was even more scarce, so the whole hospital was dirty and disorganized. Because the hospital was scheduled to accommodate 2,500 wounded, all the corridors were opened as wards. These corridors were four miles long, with overcrowded beds, poor sanitary facilities, particularly poor ventilation, foul smells, sludge on rainy days, sandy soil on sunny days, and swarms of rats roaming about, making it an extremely hostile environment. Each patient was allocated only 500 milliliters of water per day. As there were not enough beds, many patients slept on the floor, and there were not enough blankets, some of which were replaced by canvas, which many wounded soldiers preferred not to use. Fuel was constantly in short supply, and the provision of meals was even more unsatisfactory. General medicine was extremely scarce. Under these poor conditions, a large number of wounded soldiers were infected with dysentery and cholera.
Nan Dinggel took out her own 30,000 pounds for the hospital to buy drugs and medical equipment and re-organization of the hospital, the establishment of the wounded to improve the living environment and nutritional conditions, reorganization of the operating room, cafeteria and laboratory, and soon changed the face of the field hospitals can only take in 1,700 wounded field hospitals by her arrangements actually received 3,000 to 4,000 wounded. Here, her managerial and organizational skills were brought into full play. 6 months later, the field hospital underwent a dramatic change, with the casualty mortality rate dropping rapidly from 42% to 2%. This miraculous and visible nursing effect shook the country, and at the same time changed the value of nurses in Britain and raised the status of women, nursing work has been valued by the community since then. The importance of nursing was recognized. At the same time, for women to open up and create a noble profession. Nightingale to pay great energy and effort, she established a nurse patrol system, every night she always carries a wind lamp patrol wards, often working more than 20 hours a day. When night fell, she carried a small oil lamp, along the rugged path, 4 miles away from the camp, bed by bed to see the sick and wounded. The soldiers affectionately called her "Lady with the Lamp", "the Angel of the Crimea". The sick and wounded wrote: "The light came wavering over, and the cold night seemed to be filled with warmth. ...... Hundreds of us lay there, and when she came, we struggled to kiss her slender figure floating on the wall, and then lay back contentedly on our pillows." This is known as the "shadow kiss." As a result, the "Nurse with a Lamp" and the "Nursing Students' Candle Lighting and Hooding Ceremony" have become common themes for Nightingale commemorative stamps and nurses' thematic stamps.
Sandra Nightingale's great success in the Crimea and the spirit of selfless work, won the praise of the public in all countries. The importance of nurses' work was recognized, and nursing has been valued by society ever since.
Overworked, Nightingale contracted a lifelong illness. She suffered from Crimean fever in the Crimea and continued to work even before her health was fully restored, and in November 1856 she returned to England as the last of the evacuees. At the end of the war, Nightingale avoided the government's ceremonial welcome and quietly returned home to England under the name of "Miss Smith". She said, "I do not want flattery, as long as the people understand me."