Florence Nightingale (1820 –1910) was an English nurse (infermiera)that became famous for her work during the Crimean War (1853–1856) – a war fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, Ottoman Turkish, and the army of Sardinia-Piedmont to prevent (far sì che la Russia non esercitasse la protezione) Russia from exercising protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan.
Nightingale reported about the horrific conditions for the wounded (feriti) during this conflict.
On 21 October 1854, she and the staff of 38 women volunteer nurses that she trained (istruito), were sent to the Crimea camps. where the British soldiers based (avevano base).
Nightingale witnessed (testimoniò) that soldiers were not cured because of the overwork (troppo lavoro) of doctors in camps. The situation she found was serious: lack (mancanza) of medicine, lack of hygienic, no equipment to process food for the patients and mass infections (infezioni).
She sent a request to The Times for a government solution and the British Government commissioned Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design (diede l’appalto per costruire) a prefabricated. It had to be built in England and then shipped (mandato) to the Dardanelles. The result was Renkioi Hospital. The rate of death (tasso di mortalità) was reduced from 42% to 2%
Yet (eppure) illnesses (malattie) such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery killed many soldiers due to (per via di) poor nutrition, lack of supplies (rifornimenti) and overworking.
Nightingale showed before the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army, that most of the soldiers at the hospital were killed by poor living conditions and the last part of her career was turned (fu volta) to the sanitary design of hospitals.
She was called “The Lady with the Lamp” (la signora con la lampada) as sh, at night, visited wounded soldiers who needed help.
Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with her nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in London (1860), the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King’s College London.