Day 30 of Women I Admire is Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was known as The Lady With The Lamp and though she had no children or ever married, she had a shit ton of male admirers. She was fluent in four languages, and despite her parents objecting to her pursuing nursing, she felt she was doing God’s work. Wealthy women were expected to do no work and marry. But she said, “fuck that!”
During her time, wages for nurses were so low that many engaged in prostitution at the time. She realized poor sanitation was linked to high mortality, and implemented strict hygiene rules. People may have complained that her forcing them to clean and wear a face-mask was against their constitutional rights, but she didn’t waiver. It was she who was the driving force behind sanitation in hospitals, and her book in 1859 became one of nursing’s most important texts. Both sides of the Civil War benefited from her sanitation requirements and we can thank modern nursing because of her. The Order of Merit was reserved for men, but Nightingale was the first woman to receive the honor and she was such a badass that she has her own museum in London.
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