“Heart and Soul: The Story of Florence Nightingale,” by Gena K. Gorrell.
Tundra Books, Toronto, 2000, 146 pages, Grades 5-7.
Today, everyone expects hospitals to be clean and sanitary. These modern buildings have good lighting, clean bedding and sufficient food to care for patient needs. Additionally, the doctors and nurses working in hospitals are well educated in medical procedures. Antibiotics and anesthesia are routinely dispensed and in most cases are highly effective.
Now imagine a time when none of this is available. The floors on hospitals are filthy and there is no sanitation. The doctors are skilled primarily in stitching cuts and amputating injured limbs. Blood and gore are everywhere and the nursing staff is ill-trained and sometime intoxicated. People only go to hospitals to die, not to get well. This is the sad state of the medical world in the 1850s. This wretched state of medicine is about to change. One of the drivers of this change is an affluent English woman. Though slight in body, she will have an indomitable will. Her name is Florence Nightingale and this is her story.
Florence Nightingale is born in 1820 in Florence, Italy. Her parents, William and Fanny, are extremely wealthy and travel throughout Europe. Staying in the finest resorts and eating delicious cuisine, the Nightingales live a life of refinement and leisure. William is quite intelligent, but given to laziness. Not needing to work, he wiles away his life in self-centered pleasure.
Fanny also is uninterested in anything besides being a grand dame of society. Florence has one sister, Parthenope. Eventually, the Nightingales return to England and settle down on a splendid estate. Parthenope, like her parents, is quite content to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
But Florence becomes increasingly stifled by the rigid demands that society makes upon aristocratic women. She wants to make a mark in the world and to become something more than a pretty ornament. Much to her mother’s chagrin, she turns down several meaningful marriage proposals. After years of fighting with her family over these issues, Florence breaks away and begins studying nursing. She eventually becomes a trained nurse and continues to educate herself in many fields of nursing and medicine. It is not a moment too soon.
The Crimean War breaks out in the 1850s and England declares war on Russia and then deploys her army. However, reports soon reach England that wounded soldiers are dying by the thousands because of the brutal conditions of the so-called military hospitals. These hospitals are actually hell-holes of infection and misery. When Florence Nightingale learns of these horrible conditions, she organizes a group of nurses to aid the wounded soldiers in the Crimea. It is time to act. What does she do?
How does this slightly built woman change the face of medical treatment in the British Army? What key does she discover that massively lowers infection rates? How does she react to the sexist responses she receives from both men and women? To find out the answers to these and other questions, go to the library and check out this excellent biography, “Heart and Soul: The Story of Florence Nightingale” by Gena K. Gorrell.
The author does not glamorize Florence Nightingale in this biography. She describes Florence as both temperamentally difficult and altruistic. But her stubborn determination seemed to be the only way to get the English government to help the wounded soldiers in its own army. And despite all the honors showered upon her by the British government, she increasingly antagonizes many officials and friends. As a result, Florence Nightingale becomes increasingly alone as she ages. Gorrell shows us both the greatness and the shortcomings of this influential woman. I hope you get a chance to read this fine biography about the remarkable life of the founder of modern day nursing. It is well written and interesting.
