Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale, "legendary English Victorian figure", was a very talented woman. She lived from 1820 to 1910. Throughout her life, she was a woman with missions. Florence was a writer, nurse, and a self-educated statistician.

One of her many missions was to force the British army to have field hospitals and supply medical care for soldiers in the field. Through much research, Florence found out that many deaths during the Crimean War were from either illnesses caught outside of battle or from wounds that were unattended. For showing British officers this data, she invented the pie chart.

She was such a great war nurse, Florence was dubbed "Lady of the Lamp":

"She 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. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. " -The Times

Many people celebrate International Nurse's Day in memory of Florence Nightingale on her birthday. Also, the Nightingale Pledge is taken by new nurses in Florence's honor.

Florence liked to think of herself as manly, although she grew up in a rich family. She didn’t particularly have respect for women in general but she improved women’s lives dramatically through her work. The only two women she had passionate friendships with at a young age were her aunt and a female cousin. Florence preferred to have the friendship of strong, masculine men because that is who she was with for much of her life in her war work.

Later in her life, Nightingale did a comprehensive statistical study of sanitation starting in India. After much effort to reform the sanitary conditions of medical care and public health services, she reported that deaths of soldiers in India decreased from 69 to 18 per 1,000 men. After this event, Florence became the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society and then an honorary woman of the American Statistical Association.

After much hard work over several years to make a change in many aspects of the world, Florence Nightingale dies on August 13, 1910 during her sleep.