Shocking Florence
1854 AD
1854 1854
33.30E44.33N
MISC

SEVASTOPOL, UKRAINE
	Florence Nigh\tin\gale's parents were horrified.  Their daughter had just announced her intention to be a nurse, and nursing was among the lowest of occupations, engaged in by the dirtiest and least-educated women.
	But Florence was strong-willed, meticulous and believed God had given her a special calling.  "On February 7th, 1837," she wrote, "God spoke to me, and called me into his service."
	Despite her parents' objections, she studied nursing at Catholic and Protestant hospitals.
	Then, in 1854, the horrible condition of British Army hospitals during the Crimean War prompted the government to ask her to run the hospitals in the Crimea, located on the north side of the Black Sea.  With her emphasis on sanitation, she and her 38 nurses brought the hospital death rate from 42 percent down to 2 percent.
	Though the strain of the war had permanently damaged her health, she later founded a nurses' school, wrote on hospital administration, petitioned the government for hospital reforms, and served as an inspiration for the founding of the Red Cross by Jean Henri Dunant.