Florence Nightingale
Important in Medicine because…
· Florence Nightingale was from a wealthy background and chose to revolutionise a profession that had the very worst reputation. Nursing.
· She brought discipline, routine, hygiene and professionalism to Nursing by establishing a Nursing college.
· But first by 1849 she had studied in Europe and Alexandria in 1850. Three years later she was Superintendant of the Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen.
· The Crimean War broke out in March 1854, quick telegraph communications brought home horror stories from War Correspondents. Florence went out to the Hospital at Scutari with 38 nurses.
· She reduced the death rate from 42% to 2% in 1856. Evidence of her success, and that soldiers and wounded were been killed more by unhygienic hospitals than the enemy helped spur on support for her work.
· Like John Snow she was a keen statistician and used graphs (she invented the pie chart) to demonstrate her data and conclusions.
· Her important lies also in her book Notes on Nursing which was popular, setting out rules for Nursing education and healthy wards.