Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer

by: Barbara Dossey

Amazon Price: $24.99 (as of 05/31/2012)

Profound and inspiring

Dr. Barbara Dossey, founder of the American Holistic Nursing Association, has written an inspiring and insightful biography of Florence Nightingale that has much to teach us about being bold, tough minded, task oriented, creative, passionate and compassionate. Nightingale conscientiously developed the strongly focused conceptual, organizational and networking skills that contributed to her formidable accomplishments in the fields of nursing, housing, sanitation and statistics and did it all despite chronic illness, criticism, sexism and other major life challenges. Most of all, we learn that Nightingale was a visionary and mystic, whose life story challenges all of us to know, accept and realize our God-given purpose in this world.

===

I purchased this book for my daughter, who is in nursing school, for Christmas last year. Florence was such a fascinating individual. I had a difficult time getting it wrapped as I kept wanting to "read just one more chapter"!

Florence Nightingale

Amazon Price: $4.28 (as of 05/31/2012)

Jacqueline Smith gave a heartfelt and noble portrayal of Florence. The movie itself showcased some of Florences best moments, standing up to the male hierachy of the British Army to be allowed to care for the wounded soldiers. I defy anyone not to be moved by Florence's dedication and commitment to her patients. Way to go Jackie! Good job in bringing the "Lady with the Lamp" to life!"

Florence Nightingale's Notes on Nursing and Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes: Commemorative Edition with Historical Commentary

Amazon Price: $36.73 (as of 05/31/2012)

Simultaneously witty, scathing, and anecdotal, Florence Nightingale's "Notes on Nursing" is perhaps the most influential work on nursing throughout the world. For years, the varying editions of this seminal work have puzzled scholars as well as readers. Now, Dr. Skretkowicz sets the historical record straight. This volume includes the annotated and unabridged July 1860 edition [the "Library Standard Edition"] of Notes on Nursing, the 1868 edition of "Notes on Nursing [for the Labouring Classes]", and additional manuscripts written by Nightingale in 1875 that she was never able to publish.

Beautifully bound in faux leather with a decorative ribbon, this commemorative volume makes a perfect gift for any nurse and is a must-have for all nursing libraries and researchers. The new edition presents Nightingale's unabridged edition in its original form for the very first time since its publication in July 1860. Together with the 1868 edition and the 1875 manuscripts, the book provides today's educated readership with the nearest possible "authoritative, complete, and unexpurgated" version of "one of the best selling, globally circulated texts of the nineteenth century."

Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon

by: Mark Bostridge

Amazon Price: $12.81 (as of 05/31/2012)

Read this book and be inspired. Nurses are special people.

The era in the 1800's is landscaped by Bosteridge, drawing on the influences of religion, family life, culture and economic influences, many of which are mirrored in the financial meltdown of 2008. They had bank failures back in the 1800's; crop failures, and the poor struggling to exist. It is in this backdrop that Florence first moved to help those in need.

Florence is best known by the public for her Lady of the Lamp reputation earned in the Crimean War and while this defines her, that war experience was for a brief period of her 90 years life, 1854 to 1856. One third of the book deals with the Crimean action, the rest deals with an outstanding woman in troublemsome times. Florence was intelligent, well travelled, musically talented, forceful, determined and caring.

Bosteridge draws out her character and leaves us in no doubt we are dealing with an exceptional lady with the stamp of leadership.

Florence lived to 90 years of age, a spinster. She was an attractive young lady and sought after, turning down offers of marriage. In her early days she wanted freedom. Her attitudes are recorded. Marriage interfered with her view of freedom so she avoided it. After Crimea she sought privacy and seclusion, beset by long standing ill health.

In 2010 there will be world wide acknowlegements of the centenary of her death. There will be some who will point out that nursing, and the views of Florence, have changed in 100 years but there will be no escaping that our world is a better place for her life. In any event there are signs that modern nursing preparation and training are unlikely to stand the 100 year test.

She struggled when women were powerless. Nursing was mostly an ugly profession outside the Religious Orders, and certainly in England nurses were primarily engaged in washing, cooking and bed making. Bosteridge shows nurses to have been drunks on duty, with night nurses prone to drinking and spending time in bed with their patients. No wonder the well-off Nightingale family tried to discourage Florence reaching out to those in need, even in the local community.

And the soldiers looked after by Florence and her 38 nurses in Crimea were low in the Army food chain. Their plight was revealed by newspaper correspondents and caring people, including Florence. The army left them to die of disease and was in denial until they were subjected to the wrath of the British public showing interest in the welfare of 30,000 of their men. (...)

Eminent Victorians

by: Lytton Strachey

Amazon Price: $12.17 (as of 05/31/2012)

In Lytton Strachey's hands, Florence Nightingale is not a gentle archangel descended from heaven to minister sweetly to wounded soldiers, but rather an exacting, dictatorial, and judgmental crusader. Her "pen, in the virulence of its volubility, would rush ... to the denunciation of an incompetent surgeon or the ridicule of a self-sufficient nurse. Her sarcasm searched the ranks of the officials with the deadly and unsparing precision of a machine-gun. Her nicknames were terrible. She respected no one."