SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING GROUP 2017 – 18 PROGRAMME
‘LADIES WITH LAMPS’ The life and times of; FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE & KATHERINE BLODGETT Presentation by Jill Turner, 11 th October 2017
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE – OUTLINE BIOGRAPHY • Born ‐ 12 May 1820; Florence in Tuscany • Died ‐ 13 August 1910 ; Park Lane, London • Known for pioneering modern nursing • Most notable awards; Royal Red Cross(1883) Lady of Grace of the Order of St John ( LGStJ) Order of Merit (1907)
MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS • The founder of modern nursing ‐ Crimean War; “ The Lady with the Lamp" and the icon of Victorian culture • English social reformer, • Statistician, • Writer – dissemination of medical knowledge ( plain English ) and posthumously on religious & mystical themes .
FAMILY BACKGROUND • Family ‐ rich, upper‐class and well‐connected • Father – William Edward Nightingale, born William Edward Shore (1794– 1874) • Mother ‐Frances ("Fanny") Nightingale née Smith (1789–1880) • Maternal grandfather – abolitionist and Unitarian William Smith • 1821 ‐ family returned to England, Florence grew up in family homes at Embley, Hampshire and Lea Hurst, Derbyshire
NURSING CONTRIBUTION • Topic of debate ‐ questioning of Nightingale’s contribution • ? Media exaggeration – need for a hero figure • Unquestioningly the founder of modern professional nursing • Established the nursing school at St Thomas Hospital ‐the world’s first secular nursing school • Nightingale pledge – taken by all new nurses • Florence Nightingale Medal – highest international nursing distinction • International Nursing Day – 12 th May
EARLY LIFE • Taught by father • 1838 ‐ family toured Europe. Met English‐born Parisian hostess Mary Clarke ‐ became friend and role model of female equality • Religious ‘experience’ – felt called to serve others • Family resistance to nursing as a career for women of her social status • FN delayed announcing her intentions to nurse until 1844 • Poet Richard Monckton Milnes ‐ 9 year courtship but she declined offer of marriage devoting herself instead to nursing • 1847 Rome ‐ met politician Sidney Herbert, Secretary at War 1845– 1846 and again in the Crimean War
FORMATIVE YEARS • Travels including Greece , Egypt and Lutheran community at Kaiserswerth‐am–Rhein (Germany ) where FN witnessed care of the sick and deprived • Turning point ‐ 1851; The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc. as her first published work • 4 months of medical training at the Institute • 22 August 1853‐ October 1854 , post of superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London
SOCIAL AND HEALTHCARE REFORMS • Social reforms and improvements in healthcare; all sections of British society, • Advocated better hunger relief in India, • Helped to abolish prostitution laws that were over‐harsh to women, • Expanded the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce
THE CRIMEAN WAR – 1 • F.N. concerns at reports of poor conditions for wounded soldiers led her to mobilise support and an expedition of 38 trained nurses to Selimiye Barracks in Scutari ( now Istanbul) November 1854 • F.N. wrote to The Times requesting government support. • I.K. Brunel designed a pre‐ fabricated hospital ( civilian ) Renkioi Hospital . Death rate less than 10% of Scutari • F.N. Instituted strict hygiene methods ( including handwashing). • Stephen Paget ( Dictionary of National Biography ) praised the reduction in the death rate from 42% to 2%
THE CRIMEAN WAR – 2 • During the first winter at Scutari, 4,077 soldiers died. • Ten times more soldiers died from illnesses ( eg typhus, typhoid , cholera and dysentery ) than from battle wounds. • The Sanitary Commission was sent to Crimea ( March 1855) – improvements in sanitation etc were followed by reduced death rates. • Some 20 th century debate ref F.N.’s contribution although she did not actually claim credit for reductions in deaths. • F.N. belief in the wider impact of living conditions on death rates (poor sanitation, over work) resulted in her later peace time work on housing.
The Lady with the lamp . Popular lithograph reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_Nightingale._Coloured_lithograph._Wellcome_V0006579.jpg ) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ‐ 1857 poem "Santa Filomena": ‘…Lo! in that house of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom, And flit from room to room …’
LATER CAREER - 1 • 29 November 1855 ‐ Nightingale Fund established. Duke of Cambridge as Chairman • ‘Medical tourism’ concept attributed to F.N. – ref 1856 letters directing treatment of patients in spas in the Ottoman Empire ; cheaper than in Switzerland • Nightingale Training School – St Thomas’ Hospital; 9 July 1860. • Now ‐ the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College London • ‘Notes on Nursing’ (1859) ‐ cornerstone of the curriculum promoting basic rules of hygiene as ‘………… the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have“.
LATER CAREER – 2 • Major achievement ‐ the introduction of trained nurses into the workhouse system in Britain from the 1860s • Hitherto nurses were untrained. Ref. Dickens ‐ Mrs Gamp ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) – untrained and incompetent • F.N.s work inspired nurses in the American Civil War and the U.S. Sanitary Commission • F.N. mentored Linda Richards ‐ "America's first trained nurse"
AWARDS AND HONOURS • 1883 – awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria. • 1904 ‐ appointed a Lady of Grace of the Order of St John. • 1907 ‐ became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit. • 1908 ‐ given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London. • Birthday is now celebrated as International CFS Awareness Day
FINAL YEARS • Periods of ill health • 13 th August 1910 died in Mayfair ‐ 90 years old • Family declined Westminster Abbey burial • Grave at St Margaret’s Church, East Wellow, Hampshire • Carrara marble by Francis William Sargant in 1913 in the cloister of the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence
OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS - 1 Statistics • Gifted mathematician. • Pioneered the visual representation of information – Polar area diagram / ‘Nightingale rose diagram ( pie chart ) • First female member of the Royal Statistical Society • Honorary member of the American Statistical Association Sanitary reform • England and India
OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS - 2 Feminist writings • Over 200 books, pamphlets and articles • Rejected the over feminisation of women into near helplessness Theology • Believed that genuine religion should manifest in active care and love for others • Often critical of organised religion Other • “What cruel mistakes are sometimes made by benevolent men and women in matters of business about which they can know nothing and think they know a great deal."
FURTHER READING • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale • http://www.florence‐ nightingale.co.uk/resources/biography/?v=79cba1185463 • https://beta.sciencemuseum.org.uk/stories/2016/11/4/florence‐ nightingalethe‐pioneer‐statistician
KATHERINE BLODGETT Scanned from Hall of History News , Vol 10, No 3, Spring 1992, Schenectady, NY.
KATHERINE BURR BLODGETT • Born 10 th January 1898 Schenectady, New York • Father ‐ George Reddington Blodgett (1862‐1897). Head of the patent department at GE. Murdered shortly before she was born ( shot by a burglar ) • Mother Katharine Buchanan (nee Burr) Blodgett (ca 1865 ‐ ? ) • Katherine ( Katie ) died 12 th October 1979 also at Schenectady
EARLY STUDIES • Scholarship at 15 years to Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. • B.A. degree in physics and met Irving Langmuir • M.S. degree; University of Chicago ‐ adsorption capacities of charcoal in gas masks • 1918 hired as Langmuir’s research assistant; the 1 st woman scientist to join the GE research laboratory
IRVING LANGMUIR • Irving Langmuir (1881–1957) • Graduated from Columbia University’s School of Mines • Doctorate under the physical chemist Walther Nernst at University of Göttingen, Germany ( frontiers of physical chemistry) • 1909 – to the recently established General Electric (GE) Research Laboratory in Schenectady
IRVINE LANGMUIR • Problems with new tungsten filament light bulbs • Langmuir examined the basic scientific processes; the chemical reactions catalyzed by the hot tungsten filament • Filled the bulbs with nitrogen ( later argon) & twisted the filament into a spiral to inhibit vaporization of tungsten
LANGMUIR – NOBEL PRIZE • Main focus of study ‐ chemical forces at the interfaces between different substances • Location of many biologically and technologically important reactions • New concept of adsorption — adhesion of atoms or molecules to a surface • Key discovery – the layer of adsorbate ( atoms or molecules accumulated at the surface of the adsorbent ) is only one molecule thick—a monolayer, or monomolecular film.
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