78 Facts About Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing.

Florence Nightingale significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards.

Florence Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in statistics; she represented her analysis in graphical forms to ease drawing conclusions and actionables from data.

Florence Nightingale is famous for usage of the polar area diagram, called the Nightingale rose diagram, equivalent to a modern circular histogram.

Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in data visualisation with the use of infographics, using graphical presentations of statistical data in an effective way.

The family moved back to England in 1821, with Florence Nightingale being brought up in the family's homes at Embley, Hampshire, and Lea Hurst, Derbyshire.

Florence Nightingale inherited a liberal-humanitarian outlook from both sides of her family.

Florence Nightingale's parents were William Edward Nightingale, born William Edward Shore and Frances Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale said that if given the choice between being a woman or a galley slave, then she would choose the freedom of the galleys.

Florence Nightingale generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals.

Clarke demonstrated that women could be equals to men, an idea that Florence Nightingale had not learnt from her mother.

Florence Nightingale worked hard to educate herself in the art and science of nursing, in the face of opposition from her family and the restrictive social code for affluent young English women.

Florence Nightingale became Herbert's key adviser throughout his political career, though she was accused by some of having hastened Herbert's death from Bright's disease in 1861 because of the pressure her programme of reform placed on him.

Florence Nightingale continued her travels as far as Greece and Egypt.

Florence Nightingale often carried the owl in her pocket, until the pet died.

Florence Nightingale regarded the experience as a turning point in her life, and issued her findings anonymously in 1851; The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc.

Florence Nightingale received four months of medical training at the institute, which formed the basis for her later care.

Florence Nightingale's team found that poor care for wounded soldiers was being delivered by overworked medical staff in the face of official indifference.

For example, Florence Nightingale implemented handwashing in the hospital where she worked.

Florence Nightingale is a "ministering angel" without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her.

Florence Nightingale noted that the treatment there was significantly less expensive than in Switzerland.

Florence Nightingale spent the rest of her life promoting and organising the nursing profession.

Florence Nightingale had access to people in high places and she used it to get things done.

Florence Nightingale was stubborn, opinionated, and forthright but she had to be those things in order to achieve all that she did.

Bostridge points out that in the early 1880s Florence Nightingale wrote an article for a textbook in which she advocated strict precautions designed, she said, to kill germs.

Florence Nightingale's work served as an inspiration for nurses in the American Civil War.

Florence Nightingale's ideas inspired the volunteer body of the United States Sanitary Commission.

Florence Nightingale advocated autonomous nursing leadership, and that her new style of matrons had full control and discipline over their nursing staff.

In 1883, Florence Nightingale became the first recipient of the Royal Red Cross.

Florence Nightingale's birthday is celebrated as International CFS Awareness Day.

From 1857 onwards, Florence Nightingale was intermittently bedridden and suffered from depression.

Florence Nightingale wrote very little during that period due to blindness and declining mental abilities, though she still retained an interest in current affairs.

Florence Nightingale criticised early women's rights activists for decrying an alleged lack of careers for women at the same time that lucrative medical positions, under the supervision of Nightingale and others, went perpetually unfilled.

Florence Nightingale's most beloved confidante was Mary Clarke, an Englishwoman she met in Paris in 1837 and kept in touch with throughout her life.

Some scholars of Florence Nightingale's life believe that she remained chaste for her entire life, perhaps because she felt a religious calling to her career.

Florence Nightingale left a large body of work, including several hundred notes that were previously unpublished.

Florence Nightingale exhibited a gift for mathematics from an early age and excelled in the subject under the tutelage of her father.

Later, Florence Nightingale became a pioneer in the visual presentation of information and statistical graphics.

Florence Nightingale used methods such as the pie chart, which had first been developed by William Playfair in 1801.

Indeed, Florence Nightingale is described as "a true pioneer in the graphical representation of statistics", and is especially well-known for her usage of a polar area diagram, or occasionally the Florence Nightingale rose diagram, equivalent to a modern circular histogram, to illustrate seasonal sources of patient mortality in the military field hospital she managed.

Florence Nightingale called a compilation of such diagrams a "coxcomb", but later that term would frequently be used for the individual diagrams.

Florence Nightingale made extensive use of coxcombs to present reports on the nature and magnitude of the conditions of medical care in the Crimean War to Members of Parliament and civil servants who would have been unlikely to read or understand traditional statistical reports.

In 1859, Florence Nightingale was elected the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society.

Florence Nightingale made a comprehensive statistical study of sanitation in Indian rural life and was the leading figure in the introduction of improved medical care and public health service in India.

Florence Nightingale lobbied the minister responsible, James Stansfeld, to strengthen the proposed Public Health Bill to require owners of existing properties to pay for connection to mains drainage.

Florence Nightingale's achievements are all the more impressive when they are considered against the background of social restraints on women in Victorian England.

Florence Nightingale's father, William Edward Nightingale, was an extremely wealthy landowner, and the family moved in the highest circles of English society.

In those days, women of Florence Nightingale's class did not attend universities and did not pursue professional careers; their purpose in life was to marry and bear children.

Florence Nightingale gets a full chapter, but instead of debunking her, Strachey praised her in a way that raised her national reputation and made her an icon for English feminists of the 1920s and 1930s.

Apparently, the writing served its original purpose of sorting out thoughts; Florence Nightingale left soon after to train at the Institute for deaconesses at Kaiserswerth.

Florence Nightingale rejected their life of thoughtless comfort for the world of social service.

Elaine Showalter called Florence Nightingale's writing "a major text of English feminism, a link between Wollstonecraft and Woolf".

Florence Nightingale was initially reluctant to join the Women's Suffrage Society when asked by John Stuart Mill, but through Josephine Butler was convinced 'that women's enfranchisement is absolutely essential to a nation if moral and social progress is to be made'.

Florence Nightingale remained in the Church of England throughout her life, albeit with unorthodox views.

Florence Nightingale wrote a work of theology: Suggestions for Thought, her own theodicy, which develops her heterodox ideas.

Florence Nightingale was a strong opponent of discrimination both against Christians of different denominations and against those of non-Christian religions.

Florence Nightingale believed religion helped provide people with the fortitude for arduous good work and would ensure the nurses in her care attended religious services.

Florence Nightingale disliked the role the 19th century Church of England would sometimes play in worsening the oppression of the poor.

Florence Nightingale argued that secular hospitals usually provided better care than their religious counterparts.

Florence Nightingale's lasting contribution has been her role in founding the modern nursing profession.

Florence Nightingale set an example of compassion, commitment to patient care and diligent and thoughtful hospital administration.

Florence Nightingale belongs to that select band of historical characters who are instantly recognisable: the Lady with the Lamp, ministering to the wounded and dying.

The Florence Nightingale Pledge is a modified version of the Hippocratic Oath which nurses recite at their pinning ceremony at the end of training.

Florence Nightingale's admirers include Country Joe of Country Joe and the Fish, who has assembled an extensive website in her honour.

The Florence Nightingale-Macmillan continuing care unit is at the Royal Derby Hospital, formerly known as The City Hospital, Derby.

Florence Nightingale later transferred to a mule cart and was reported to have escaped serious injury when the cart was toppled in an accident.

Florence Nightingale's voice was saved for posterity in a phonograph recording from 1890 preserved in the British Library Sound Archive.

The first theatrical representation of Florence Nightingale was Reginald Berkeley's The Lady with the Lamp, premiering in London in 1929 with Edith Evans in the title role.

In 2009, a stage musical play representation of Florence Nightingale entitled The Voyage of the Lass was produced by the Association of Nursing Service Administrators of the Philippines.

In 1912, a biographical silent film titled The Victoria Cross, starring Julia Swayne Gordon as Nightingale, was released, followed in 1915 by another silent film, Florence Nightingale, featuring Elisabeth Risdon.

In 1993, Nest Entertainment released an animated film Florence Nightingale, describing her service as a nurse in the Crimean War.

Florence Nightingale's note was in circulation alongside the images of Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, Sir Christopher Wren, the Duke of Wellington and George Stephenson, and prior to 2002, other than the female monarchs, she was the only woman whose image had ever adorned British paper currency.

Florence Nightingale had a principled objection to having photographs taken or her portrait painted.

The first biography of Florence Nightingale was published in England in 1855.

Florence Nightingale was the subject of one of Lytton Strachey's four mercilessly provocative biographical essays, Eminent Victorians.

In 1981, the asteroid 3122 Florence Nightingale was named after her.

Celebrations to mark her bicentenary in 2020, were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, but the NHS Florence Nightingale hospitals were named after her.