Heroic Facts About Florence Nightingale, The Lady With The Lamp
Florence Nightingale requires little introduction to anyone who knows their medical history.
The Victorian nurse’s name is a shorthand for first-class bedside care, and her social reforms changed the face of modern medicine both on and off the battlefield.
Behind the legendary lamp, which she often carried to guide her way through field hospitals at night, what was this enigmatic woman really like? Find out with these 42 caring facts about Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp.
Facts About Florence Nightingale
1. Brought Something Back from Vacation
Florence Nightingale was named after the city of her birth. Although her family was British, they welcomed Florence in the city of Florence, Italy.
(It could have been worse; her older sister had been born in and named after the Greek settlement of Parthenope).
2. The School of Pops
Nightingale was born to a family of privilege and education. Both her upper-class parents were landowners educated in the liberal-humanities tradition.
However, it was specifically her father, William Nightingale, who would be the future nurse's intellectual role model.
3. One of the Guy’s Girls
When she was 18 years old, Nightingale began her lifelong friendship with the writer and intellectual, Mary Clarke.
Although Clarke was 27 years Nightingale’s senior, she influenced the young woman heavily with her masculine manners, eccentricity, and ambitious pursuits in the world of men.
