Why do we remember her?
On 4 November 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived in Turkey with a group of 38 nurses from England. Britain was at war with Russia (the Crimean War 1854-1856) and the conditions in the hospitals were very bad. Hundreds of soldiers were injured in the fighting. In those days, hospitals were very basic and there was not a lot of food and medicine to give the soldiers.
When Florence got to the hospital, she saw that wounded men were sleeping in overcrowded, dirty rooms without any blankets. This meant that the wounded soldiers were catching diseases like typhus, cholera and dysentery. More men died from these diseases than from their injuries.
When she arrived at the hospital, the army doctors who worked there did not want the nurses helping. Soon after they arrived however, there was a very large battle, and the doctors realised they needed the nurses' help. Florence Nightingale realised that if the doctors were going to allow her nurses to work then they had to do a very good job.
Source : http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/lesson40.htm
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