LONDON (Reuters) – Victorian Britain has taken Florence Nightingale to heart as the “Lady with a Lamp” who cared for injured soldiers, but a new exhibit shows her as a difficult pioneer whose principles of hygiene underpin nursing today as the world battles coronavirus.
A photograph shows Florence Nightingale, 86, in bed in her London home in South Street, Mayfair, Great Britain in 1906. Elizabeth Bosanquet / FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MUSEUM / Document distributed via REUTERS
The exhibit at the Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas’ Hospital in London marks the bicentenary of Nightingale’s birth in a wealthy family, and how she fought opposition and her family’s social constraints to become the nurse most famous in the world.
“The legacy of Florence Nightingale is really, really important. Obviously, she was an energetic leader. And today we need clear, visible and strong leadership, and certainly in modern nursing, ”said Fiona Hibberts, of the Nightingale Academy, a nursing institution at the hospital.
The exhibition “Nightingale in 200 Objects, People & Places” will last one year.
St Thomas’s is one of a handful of hospitals in Britain with a specialist department for the treatment of patients with coronavirus.
“The emphasis on sanitation, good hygiene, fresh air exercises, good food … no matter how far we go, these Florence fundamentals are still very much the foundation of modern nursing”, said Hibberts.
“It’s the same old message. Wash your hands.”
Nightingale became famous after she and a small team of nurses traveled to Istanbul today to treat wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War, during which British, French and Ottoman forces fought the Russian Empire.
In a dirty hospital in a barracks on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, she saw thousands of soldiers die from infectious diseases rather than from their injuries, which prompted her to try to improve conditions.
The lamp she used to visit the rooms at night is on display at the exhibition, as is the uniform of the nurses she created.
“If Florence Nightingale herself was here, she would support everything that is being said at the moment. She was absolutely in infection control, hand washing, being very observant, “said Yvonne Moores, president of the Florence Nightingale Foundation and former national chief of nursing for Great Britain.
“She would also like, given her very, very long career, to encourage people who have retired … to think about the role they could play in returning.”
Many retired doctors and nurses reacted with concern to a suggestion from the British government that they would be asked to fight the coronavirus if necessary.
Nightingale died at the age of 90 in 1910, continuing to work and write late in life.
The exhibition also recreates her room in London, allows visitors to smell her scent and hear a recording of her voice.
Report by Mindy Burrows; Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Janet Lawrence