Myths That Shaped Our History by Simon Webb

Author:Simon Webb [Webb, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General, Social History
ISBN: 9781473895959
Google: 9WHNDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-10-30T22:19:11+00:00

Chapter 6

Florence Nightingale in Scutari 1854–1855: ‘A Lady with a Lamp shall stand, In the great history of the Land’

Florence Nightingale is the very epitome of one of the British mythic archetypes at which we have been looking. She is the personification of the little person who takes on authority, standing up to the leadership of the British Army at the height of the Empire and bending them to her will. At a time when a woman’s place was most definitely in the home, here was one woman who not only refused to stay at home, but actually went to war in order to protect the welfare of wounded and ill men. The ‘Lady of the Lamp’ is the closest thing which the British have to a national heroine. She has even been awarded the accolade of appearing on the currency; from 1975 to 1994, Florence Nightingale was to be found on £10 notes, leading to that denomination becoming colloquially known as a ‘Nightingale’.

There can surely be very little to say on the subject of Florence Nightingale’s work; this, after all, is the woman responsible for the establishment of nursing in its modern form. She raised nursing from being the occupation of drunken slatterns such as Sarah Gamp, in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, to the honourable profession which it is today.

The difficulty with criticizing and deconstructing the myth of Florence Nightingale and her activities in Turkey is that it makes many people feel uncomfortable. It seems almost churlish and small-minded, a century and a half after her work, to pick apart and quibble over the details of what she actually achieved. After all, it must surely be indisputable that she at least did more good than bad and that the lot of those casualties of the Crimean War would have been far less pleasant and considerably more hazardous, had Florence Nightingale not taken charge of the hospital at Scutari? This is certainly the view of most people today. Here is what a popular children’s history book, published by the Oxford University Press, has to say on the matter:

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