Florence Nightingale

 Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. We know Nightingale best as the founder of modern secular nursing, but that is only one side of her many-faceted life. The source of her strength, vision, and guidance was a deep sense of unity with God, which is the hallmark of the mystical tradition as it is expressed in all the world's great religions. This aspect of her life has been vastly underestimated, yet we cannot understand her legacy without taking it into account.

From the beginning of the war, Nightingale's popularity with the British public had been enormous because of the letters that the soldiers wrote to family and friends about her and the articles in the Times that described her tireless work on behalf of the sick and wounded. As word of her accomplishments spread, she became a kind of national heroine-cum-saint in Britain and beyond. Newspapers and other publications were full of her biography as well as articles, poems, and columns about her Christian devotion in the Crimea.

Like a fiery comet, Florence Nightingale streaked across the skies of the 19th-century England and transformed the world with her passage. She was a towering genius of both intellect and spirit, and her legacy resonates today as forcefully as during her lifetime.

Last Updated on 8/13/2009 12:46:30 PM