Florence Nightingale: the Crimean War and Its Aftermath

The Crimean War (1854-56) was formative for Florence Nightingale in many ways. The fund that was raised in her honour was used to establish the first secular nurses training school in the world, at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, which opened in 1860. From it teams of nurses and matrons were sent out, to the U.K., Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc., start professional nursing in those countries.

The reports Nightingale wrote after the war were formative for her development as a researcher (she was the first woman Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society). The Crimean War had a high death rate, mainly from disease. But the British Army succeeded in reducing it radically, proving, for Nightingale, that applied research was essential for all such matters as running hospitals and armies. Meanwhile the French Army saw its (initially lower) death rates nearly double in the second year of the war, from which many lessons could be drawn.