Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. She came from a wealthy family. As a child she had a vivid imagination, was considered a dreamer and often dreamed of helping others. Nightingale was well educated, a benefit of her family’s wealth and her fathers belief in education, even for women. She studied all of the basic subjects, such as history, math, philosophy, science, music and art. She also learned five different languages. At a very young age she discovered her passion for mathematics. This was not considered an important subject for women so Nightingale had to beg her parents to let her study mathematics. Her desire to help others was put into practice at a young age. She started out by
She demonstrated that statistics provided an organized way of learning and lead to improvements in medical and surgical practices. She developed a Model Hospital Statistical Form that helped hospitals to collect and generate consistent data and statistics. Her work with medical statistics was so impressive that she was elected to the membership in the statistical society of England. Karl Pearson acknowledged Nightingale “as a prophetess” in the development of applied statistic (Audain, 1). These statistics, along with her letters and notes convinced the military authorities, Parliament and Queen Victoria to carry out her proposed hospital reforms. Many of her statistical forms and diagrams are still in use today within the military and hospitals. Nightingale is recognized the world over as the person who set out the principles for nursing education and practice. Her name stands for the nursing profession, as she is responsible for establishing nursing as a respected profession. Nightingale believed that nursing was a science, therefore required structured training and education. She opened the Nightingale School, a formal nursing program out of St. Thomas Hospital in London in 1860. The school was funded from donations to the Nightingale fund. The veterans of the Crimean war and others who believed in her cause gave donations. The school was a success and her nurses