Lessons from the life of Florence Nightingale

by Charlotte A. Aikens

The difficulties which she had to contend with can never be fully appreciated at this time when women’s service as nurses in the army in most civilized countries is well established. Her biographer writing of that period says:

“Miss Nightingale’s work in the Crimea was attended by ceaseless worry. She had to fight her way into full authority. She knew that she would win, but her enemies were active, and were for the moment in possession of the field. ‘There is not an official,’ she said, ‘who would not burn me like Joan of Arc, if he could, but they know that the War Office cannot turn me out because the country is with me. * * * The real grievance against us is that though subordinate to the medical chiefs in office, we are superior to them in influence, and in the chance of being heard at home.’”

It is not easy to suggest the many qualities of character in Miss Nightingale which the experiences in the Crimea brought out into bold relief—qualities which are just as much needed in nursing today as they were then. Her unflinching endurance of the hardships which the conditions forced upon her; her generous recognition of the work of others; her thoughtful care of the nurses who had been entrusted to her, under the most difficult conditions—should be remembered quite as much as her wonderful organizing qualities, her keen insight into situations, and her general ability to produce results—to bring things to pass. It was a recognition of these latter qualities that led Queen Victoria to exclaim: “Such a clear head! I wish we had her at the War Office.”

After the war was over and a general inquiry as to conditions and methods of sanitary improvement in regard to the army had been started in London, an army doctor writing of her said: “It may surprise many persons to find from Miss Nightingale’s evidence that, added to feminine graces, she possesses not only the gift of acute perception, but that on all the points submitted to her she reasons with a strong, acute, most logical, and if we may say so, masculine intellect, that may well shame other witnesses. They maunder through their subject, as if they had by no means made up their minds on any one point—they would, and they would not; and they seem almost to think that two parallel roads may sometimes be made to meet, by dint of courtesy and good feeling, amiable motives that should never be trusted to in matters of duty. When you have to encounter hydra-headed monsters of officialism and ineptitude, straight hitting is the best mode of attack. Miss Nightingale shows that she not only knows her subject, but feels it thoroughly. There is, in all she says, a clearness, a logical coherence, a pungency and abruptness, a ring as of true metal, that is altogether admirable.”

To have failed in appreciation of the part her assistant nurses played, during the excitement of wartime conditions, would have been easy and, to a degree, excusable—but she did not fail. To take the whole credit for achievement to oneself is a very human failing, but it was not one of Florence Nightingale’s failings.

One illustration of her appreciation of her associates in the campaign shows this characteristic plainly. Of one woman whom she had placed in a position of more than ordinary responsibility, she wrote: “Without her, our Crimean work would have come to grief—without her judgment, her devotion, her unselfish, consistent looking to the one great end—the carrying out of the work as a whole—without her untiring zeal, her accuracy in all trusts and accounts, her truth, her faithfulness. Her praise and reward are in higher hands than mine.”

In describing to the Secretary of State certain sanitary reforms which she carried out in the hospitals of Scutari, she wrote: “I must pay my tribute to the instinctive delicacy, the ready attention of orderlies and patients during all that dreadful period. For my sake they performed offices of this kind (which they neither would for the sake of discipline, nor for that of importance to their own health, which they did not know), and never was there one word nor one look which a gentleman would not have used; and while paying this humble tribute to humble courtesy, the tears come into my eyes as I think how amidst scenes of loathsome disease and death, there rose above it all the innate dignity, gentleness, and chivalry of the men, shining in the midst of what must be considered the lowest sinks of human misery, and preventing, instinctively, the use of one expression which could distress a gentlewoman.”

It is easy to think of Miss Nightingale as a great organizer and executive—it is less easy to imagine how she found time to give the personal attention to the individual patient that she did give. “She was wonderful,” said one, “at cheering up any one who was a bit low.” In the midst of her manifold responsibilities she found time to write hundreds of letters, to relatives at home, for those unable to write, and to instill in the nurses associated with her the same spirit. There was nothing mechanical in the nursing of that period. Every patient was a human being with relatives and anxious friends rightfully interested, who must be kept informed as to his condition, as far as possible.

TEACHING A COUNTRY BY DEMONSTRATION.

Nowadays when women of many classes are contending that legislation is necessary before real reforms can be brought about, it is interesting to note that Florence Nightingale’s reforms were initiated mainly by demonstration of the way a thing could be accomplished. Her biographer, in writing of this, says that “it was a common belief of the time that it was in the nature of the British soldier to be drunken. The same idea was entertained of the British nurse. Miss Nightingale utterly refused to believe it.” Writing to a friend, while in Scutari, she remarks: “I have never been able to join in the popular cry about the recklessness, sensuality and helplessness of the soldiers. On the contrary, I should say that I have never seen so teachable and helpful a class as the army generally. Give them opportunity, promptly and securely, to send money home and they will use it. Give them schools and lectures and they will come to them. Give them books and games and amusements and they will leave off drinking. Give them suffering and they will bear it. Give them work to do and they will do it.”