Florence
Nightingale
1820-1910
Florence Nightingale was born to wealthy English tourists while they
were visiting Florence in Italy, so that's what they named her. When
she
told her parents that she wanted to be nurse, they were horrified
because it was such a disresputable occupation, just one notch below
actress. Nursing involved touching men's parts and fluids. Eventually,
they allowed her to
study at religious hospitals in Germany and France. After she returned
to England and put her learning to work, her reputation took off.
During the Crimean War, it became obvious that the army didn't care
about sick
and wounded soldiers. They were just left to fester in their beds until
they died and cleared the beds for new cases. The War Ministry sent her
to Constantinople to fix
things. She introduced the concept of washing your hands before poking
your
fingers into ozing wounds, and washing bandages and linens before
reusing them on new patients, so the death rates
miraculously plummeted.
How lesbian was she?
Don't be ridiculous. She wasn't anything. She would have been a nun if
the Church of England allowed such things.
The only reasons she raises eyebrows nowadays is because she spent most
of her time in the company of women and wrote gushing letters to her
friends, but she was a
nurse and a Victorian. That's how they did things.
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