弗洛伦斯 · 南丁格尔（Florence Nightingale，1820年5月12日－1910年8月13日），英国女护士，近代护理学和护士教育创始人。
这位了不起的医护人员被尊称为“提灯女神”，她的伟大之处在于，从她开始，护士职业地位被提升，受到全社会的高度尊重。
Florence Nightingale
1820–1910
the nurse known as ‘the lady with the lamp’
My first name comes from a beautiful Italian city and my second name comes from a beautiful bird. But during my career, I saw many things that weren’t beautiful. I saw soldiers with terrible wounds. I helped them, and other sick people, to survive.I was born on 12th May 1820, in Florence, Italy. My parents, who were English, lived in Italy at that time. I had a sister called Parthenope. Both of us were given the names of the places where we were born. My family moved back to England in the year after my birth. My father was a rich man and we had two large houses in the countryside. I grew up in these houses and I had my lessons at home. I enjoyed learning languages – I studied Latin, Greek, German, French and Italian.
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When I was 17 years old, I decided that I wanted to work as a nurse. I didn’t tell my parents at first. I knew that they didn’t want girls from rich families like ours to work. But I looked at the poor people who lived near us. Their lives were very difficult and sad. The Poor Laws in England at that time were very cruel, and I wanted to improve them. And I cared about sick people and I wanted to help them. When I finally told my family this in 1844, my mother and sister were very unhappy. I knew what I wanted to do, but I hated upsetting my family.I visited Kaiserswerth, in Germany, at about this time. There was a training college for nurses there. Treatments for sick people in England were bad, but in Kaiserswerth, I saw much better treatments.When I returned to England, a man asked me to marry him. The man who wanted to marry me was a politician – a member of the British parliament. His name was Richard Monkton Milnes. Again, I upset my family when I refused to marry him. I didn’t want to marry anyone.My health wasn’t good, and my family were angry with me, so my health became worse. I wanted to leave England again. I spent some time in Rome, where I hoped to recover. During my stay there I met Sidney Herbert, another British politician. He became a close friend, and later he supported my ambitions.
In 1850, my family sent me to Egypt because my health was still not good. They hoped that warm, dry weather could help me. While I was there, I made some decisions about my future. I had no more doubts. I wanted to be a nurse. The next year I went back to Kaiserswerth. I began my training there.When I returned to England in 1853, I started to treat sick women in London. My father didn’t agree with my decision, but he supported me with money. Henry Manning, a famous priest, helped me too, and he became a good friend.![]()
At this time, Britain was fighting Russia in the area called Crimea, on the north shore of the Black Sea. I heard sad news about the British soldiers who were fighting there. Many were wounded and many were sick. The treatment they received in the British military hospitals – the hospitals belonging to the army – wasn’t good. I decided to help them. In October 1854, I took 38 other female nurses to Scutari, a town which is now part of Istanbul, in Turkey. Many wounded and sick British soldiers were in the British military hospital there. I saw the terrible conditions in the hospital and I quickly understood something. Many men were dying there, but their wounds weren’t killing them. Diseases were killing them. Bad hygiene was the reason for this. The diseases called typhus, cholera and dysentery were killing the men because they had no fresh water to drink. And the disease called gangrene was killing them because their wounds weren’t kept clean.Most of the military doctors in the hospital didn’t listen to our advice, because we were women. In fact, they made our work more difficult. But we began our nursing work and we washed the men’s wounds and asked for better hygiene in the hospital. There were no antibiotics in those days, so we couldn’t treat the men with drugs. But we changed their bandages regularly, and always kept new, clean ones for them. We were fighting a war within a war – a war against infections.I often visited the men late at night. I carried a lamp and I looked carefully at each of my patients. People called me ‘the lady with the lamp’ – and they remembered that name for the rest of my life.We worked hard at Scutari, but 4,077 soldiers died during our first winter there. More of them died from infections after they were wounded than died because of their wounds. I collected statistics about this to show to the British government. The war had shown that the people in charge of the army had important medical problems to think about. I needed to support my ideas about hygiene, so I became a statistician.When I returned to Britain, I was sick myself, and I had to stay in bed for a long time. But I didn’t forget my work. My friend Sidney Herbert told me that Queen Victoria wanted my advice. I wrote a report – more than 1000 pages long – about my ideas. I sent the report to a Royal Commission which had been established. I thought that preventing infections was much better than treating them.Royal Commission n. 皇家委员会But how could we prevent infections? Diseases were a problem in Britain as well as in Crimea. Clean water for everyone and better drains were my two answers. Many people died from diseases after they drank water that wasn’t clean. The bacteria that cause some diseases lived in the bad drains of our British towns and cities.I continued to collect statistics about health. In 1858, I became the President of the Royal Statistical Society. The next year, I wrote two books – Notes on Hospitals and Notes on Nursing. Before I left Scutari, a Nightingale Fund had been established. A large amount of money – £45,000 – was given to this fund. I used the money to establish The Nightingale School of Nursing. This school opened in London in 1860. Nurses were trained in the school and they went to work in many parts of the country.In my later years, I campaigned for better hygiene and for better training for nurses. But I also campaigned for women’s rights. I wanted women to have good careers. Many people disagreed with me. They said, ‘Women from rich families must stay at home.’ But I continued with my work. And in 1869, my friend Elizabeth Blackwell and I established The Women’s Medical College. I also wrote many more books, although most of them were not printed until after my death.Slowly, people accepted my ideas about hygiene. Often the doctors in hospitals were the last people to accept them. But I worked to improve British nursing until 1895, when I became blind. And after I lost my sight, I was still interested in the improvements that were made by other people.I died in London on 13th August 1910. I was 90 years old.Two years after my death, a Florence Nightingale medal was created. It was given to nurses who did important work.
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