Heartiest tribute for Nightingale in this Nurses Day

Aminul Islam: A heartiest tribute and honor for the celebrated English social reformer and statistician Florence Nightingale who was the founder of modern nursing.

She came to prominence while serving as a manager of nurses trained by her during the Crimean War, where she organised the tending to wounded soldiers.

 

Nightingale gave nursing a highly favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has celebrated this day since 1965. In 1953 Dorothy Sutherland, an official with the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, proposed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaim a "Nurses` Day"; he did not approve it.

In January 1974, 12 May was chosen to celebrate the day as it is the anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered the founder of modern nursing. Each year, ICN prepares and distributes the International Nurses` Day Kit.

 

Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 into a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia, in Florence, Italy, and was named after the city of her birth. When Florence was 1, the family moved back to England in 1821, with Nightingale being brought up in the family`s homes at Embley and Lea Hurst.

Some recent commentators have asserted Nightingale`s achievements in the Crimean War were exaggerated by the media at the time, to satisfy the public`s need for a hero.

Nevertheless, critics agree on the decisive importance of her followup achievements in professionalizing nursing roles for women.

In 1860, Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas` Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King`s College London.

The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday. Her social reforms include improving healthcare for all sections of British society, advocating better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that were over-harsh to women, and expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce.

 

Nightingale was a prodigious and versatile writer. In her lifetime, much of her published work was concerned with spreading medical knowledge. Some of her tracts were written in simple English so that they could easily be understood by those with poor literary skills.

She also helped popularise the graphical presentation of statistical data. Much of her writing, including her extensive work on religion and mysticism, has only been published posthumously.

risingbd/May 12, 2015/Aminul