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Today, we're looking at famous nurses throughout history.
May 12th is known as international nurses day, as it marks the date of one famous nurse in particular - Florence Nightingale.
This date has been celebrated every year since 1965, as it highlights the important contribution our nurses
and indeed all our care-giving staff have given to this industry.
Let's find out about some famous nurses through history, who have helped the world.
Florence Nightingale.
She was born in Italy on May 12th, 1820.
She is considered by most people to be the founder of modern day nursing.
She was active as a nurse during the Crimean War.
The Crimean war went on between October 1853 and February 1856.
She took care of the wounded soldiers during these times.
She would wander round during the night to check that everything was okay.
Because of this, she was dubbed 'The Lady of the Lamp'.
She noticed that British medical facilities were in dire need of improvements, especially to their sanitary conditions.
Operations were unhygienic, and often soldiers had to share their quarters with vermin.
Many diseases spread throughout the hospital as a result of this.
It is thought that the number of people dying in the hospitals was much greater than the number of people that were dying on the battlefields.
Almost seven times as many people!
She introduced many sanitary items to help keep things cleaner, such as surgical caps.
She kept data on the change of mortality using her mathematical knowledge.
She used this data to push all medical facilities to make the same improvements.
She also helped to establish the first scientifically-based nursing school.
This meant that nurses were getting formally trained in all things nursing.
The school was called the 'Nightingale School of Nursing' and was situated at St Thomas' hospital in London.
Clara Barton.
We jump across the pond now to America.
We meet the founder of the American Red Cross.
Clara was born in 1821 and started out life as a teacher.
However, during the American Civil War she decided to become a nurse.
She ventured out into the fields of battle risking her life to take supplies to the soldiers.
She was known as the 'Angel of the Battlefield'.
She helped to locate missing men and then to update their families of their status.
This led her to creating the American Red Cross in 1881.
She was its president for more than twenty years.
Walt Whitman.
The famous poet and author served his time in the American Civil war as a volunteer nurse.
He tended to the sick.
He also listened to the soldiers stories and wrote letters for them to their families.
It is thought that he visited an estimated 100,000 wounded soldiers in total during his service as a volunteer nurse.
Margaret Sanger.
Born in New York, 1879 - she was the founder of planned parenthood.
She made the term 'birth control' popular and opened the first birth control clinic in the United States.
She is an important, even today, in the history of reproductive rights.
Edith Cavell.
Edith started her nursing career around the age of thirty.
She worked first as a nurse probationer at the London Hospital in Whitechapel
After some time, she moved to Brussels to become a matron at the Brussels Berkendael Institute.
During World War Two, when the Germans occupied Brussels,
she helped around two hundred allied soldiers and local civilians to escape to neutral territories.
This was in addition to her nursing duties that she was undertaking.
Sadly, she was arrested and executed by firing squad partway into the war.
Mary Seacole.
Heading to the exotic Caribbean now, we meet Mary Seacole.
Born in 1805 in Jamaica, she was a pioneering nurse in the Crimean War.
She was rejected many times from providing nursing aid to soldiers during the war due to the colour of her skin.
Seacole funded her own passage and headed for the Crimea.
However, she was not working in a hospital.
Her work was right on the battlefield.
She went, equipped only with the knowledge that her mother had taught her about herbal medicines and tended to the soldiers.
She established a place for wounded people where they would find shelter, food, and caregivers to help them.
She funded the whole thing with her own money.
She was loved by the soldiers despite her race.
When the Crimean war ended, she was broke and had no money left.
People rallied and sent aid to her, allowing her to live out the rest of her days prosperous.
Mary received medals for her bravery and her selfless acts.
Elizabeth Fry.
She set up the first training system for professional nurses.
She used financial backing from wealthy friends; including the Queen Dowager and Bishop of London
to establish a nurses training home in London in 1840.
Her nuses were known as the 'Protestant Sisters of Charity'.
But eventually, they became simply known as 'Nursing Sisters'.
Fry was very much about helping people from lower backgrounds.
She chose twenty young women from respectable, poor backgrounds to be trained in one of the larger hospitals in London.
Eventually they would be admitted as sisters.
They lived in the training home
wore a plain, simple uniform
and received an annual salary for their work.
They went to people's homes to tend to the sick.
They did not charge the poor.
Rich people were charged a guinea a week for the services they provided.
All of the money received went back into the costs of running the nursing home.
Fry's ultimate aim was to train more of these women and make them readily available to work.
Every nurse who worked a certain number of years was to receive a pension upon retirement.
Indeed, when the Crimean War started it was Fry's 'Nursing Sisters' that Florence Nightingale took with her to help the wounded soldiers.
It should also be mentioned how Fry helped to reform the prison system.
She was nicknamed as the 'Angels of Prisons'.
She would walk into prison cells with violent women, bad smells and pandemonium.
There she would stay for the night, offering comfort, reading to them, and generally trying to raise people's morale.
She taught the women how to read, and how to do needlework.
She also established a school for their children.
She was not afraid to challenge anyone who blocked her path.
She was a major driving force behind new legislation that would improve the condition, and treatment of prisoners.
Wow, what a load of influential nurses there are around!
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