Considered to be a true pioneer of nursing for her era, Dorothy Dix was born in 1802 but she didn’t embark on this dedicated career until the age of thirty-nine! With no formal training but with a genuine calling to help people struggling with mental health issues she spent forty years of her life trying to improve a very poor health care system. Eventually becoming a superintendent of female nurses. Probably one of the most well-known nurses and a name that’s gone down in history, described as “The Lady With The Lamp” “Florence Nightingale” was best known for caring for soldiers seriously and fatally injured in the Crimean War.
A true pioneer for improving terrible sanitary conditions, Florence Nightingale was the greatest advocate for hand washing and keeping medical implements clean of her time. Both Dorothy Dix and Florence Nightingale were responsible for saving thousands of lives that would otherwise have been lost. Just think what they could have achieved if they had been able to take part in Clinical Training Courses run by a professional company such as https://www.tidaltraining.co.uk/clinical-training-courses.
Achieving the accolade of becoming the first American trained female nurse of her time, Malinda Anne Judson Roberts also made major contributions to nursing post-graduation as well as coming up with the idea of having a dedicated night nursing staff and keeping effective records for the patients. Elizabeth Grace Neill, born in 1846 in New Zealand, stayed in the nursing profession for forty years and was a staunch advocate of bringing in laws and introducing training for nurses and midwives.
Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War
Florence Nightingale is regarded as the founder of modern nursing, and International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. Born in Italy, she was educated by her father, a Cambridge graduate, and was fluent in English, Italian, French and German, with a grasp of Latin, as well as studying Shakespeare, mathematics and philosophy.
In the early 19th century nursing was not a respected career. It was poorly paid and associated with the lower classes, and her parents were unhappy when she said she felt called to it. She began training in 1850 and three years later became superintendent at a women’s hospital in London.
Her fame came in the Crimean War. A friend of the Secretary at War, she was allowed to take 38 volunteers to treat wounded soldiers. Conditions were appalling, and Nightingale linked the poor sanitation to the death rate. Within four months of improvements, mortality fell from almost 43 per cent to 2 per cent.
Women who shaped medicine and nursing
The pioneers of nursing were part of a much longer story of women improving medical care, often with little recognition. One of the earliest was Metrodora, a physician in ancient times who wrote what is believed to be the oldest surviving medical text by a woman. It dealt with diseases affecting women and their remedies, and it continued to be used and translated into the Middle Ages.
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the United States, graduating in 1849. She was turned away by almost every medical school she applied to, and the one that did accept her is said to have done so partly as a joke.
Florence Nightingale, the lady with the lamp, is widely credited as the founder of modern nursing. Caring for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, she worked to improve hygiene and treatment, trained a team of 38 nurses, and helped bring death rates down sharply.