Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Florence Nightingale

  • Book review: Florence Nightingale’s Rivals: Nursing Through the Crimea

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Florence Nightingale is best remembered as the founder of modern nursing. She opened her famous nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, in 1860. Her principles of nurse training were based on her experiences in the Crimean War a few years earlier. In this interesting and well-written book, the author, herself a…

  • Alice Fisher: A Nightingale in Philadelphia

    Karen EgenesCentennial, Colorado, United States In 1883, the board of the Guardians of the Poor, the administrators of the Philadelphia almshouse, faced a dilemma. The institution, founded in 1732 and often referred to as “Old Blockley,” was a combination of an almshouse for paupers, workhouse for vagrants, jail for criminals, asylum for the insane, and…

  • Book review: The Woman Who Revolutionised Nurses’ Training: The Life and Career of Rebecca Strong

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England When asked to name a famous nurse from the past, the most common name that rolls off people’s lips is nearly always Florence Nightingale. Sadly, many other pioneering nurses from yesteryear remain forgotten in spite of major contributions to their profession. In this new biography, the life of the pioneering nurse…

  • Florence Nightingale

    Abigail RichardsonSheffield, UK Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), the British nurse who became known as the “Lady with the Lamp,” is remembered for her work during the Crimean War and as a statistician and public health advocate.1 Her lifelong dedication to nursing led to her being the first female Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (1858) and…

  • Book review: Ethel Gordon Fenwick: Nursing Reformer and the First Registered Nurse

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom With the exception of Florence Nightingale and more recently of Mary Seacole, relatively few biographies have been written about pioneering nurses. Yet there have been many others who made great contributions to their profession and deserve to be remembered. Among these is Ethel Gordon Fenwick, whose biography was recently written…

  • The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the legacy of Long John Silver

    George VentersScotland Faced with the danger of having his right foot amputated in 1873, the real “Long John Silver,” the English poet William E. Henley, turned for help to Joseph Lister and became a patient in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. While there he was introduced to the Scots writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Born within a…

  • The two nightingales

    Inga LewenhauptEinar PermanStockholm, Sweden Two remarkable women were born in the same year two centuries ago: Jenny Lind (1820-1887) and Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). Both became world famous, Jenny Lind for her beautiful singing voice, Florence Nightingale for her pioneer work in nursing. Both were deeply religious and wanted to make the world a better place,…

  • Florence Nightingale at Scutari

    When Florence Nightingale arrived at Scutari during the Crimean War, the army hospital was filthy and rat-infested, and among the 2,000 wounded lying there the mortality was fifty percent. After she reorganized the wards and insisted on absolute cleanliness, mortality declined to a little over one percent. Highlighted Vignette Volume 12, Issue 4 – Fall…

  • Is Mary Seacole the new mother of nursing?

    Mariella ScerriMellieha, Malta The promotion of Jamaican businesswoman and “doctress” Mary Seacole as the pioneer nurse in place of Florence Nightingale was given considerable credence early in 2013, when Seacole was named a “pioneer of health care” by the UK Department of Health in its new Leadership Awards Programme.1 She had already been dubbed “pioneer…

  • Florence Nightingale, The Lady with the Lamp

    For generations, Florence Nightingale has been known as the Saintly Angel of Mercy or the Lady with the Lamp, and her story has been told many times. She arrived in Scutari in November of 1854 with thirty-eight women volunteers, sent by her close friend, the war secretary, Sydney Herbert, to reform the army hospitals in…