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Metropolitan Asylums Board

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The Metropolitan Asylums Board ( MAB ) was established under Poor Law legislation to deal with London 's sick and poor. It was established by the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867 ( 30 & 31 Vict. c. 6) and dissolved in 1930, when its functions were transferred to the London County Council .

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80-756: The Act was passed following a campaign by Florence Nightingale and Edwin Chadwick and the health section of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science and some well-publicised deaths of paupers in workhouses. The President of the Poor Law Board, Mr Gathorne Hardy in September 1866, instructed two doctors to visit London workhouses with a view to procuring information which might assist him in drafting new legislation for

160-576: A Draft Plain Language Act (2019) supported by NALA received cross-party support, but Brexit discussions and then COVID-19 put the draft act on hold. NALA continues to support domestic and international efforts to make information accessible to all (particularly those with literacy and numeracy needs). In early 2020, NALA developed an A-Z plain English guide to COVID-19 terms, and continues to provide support and advice to those who wish to improve

240-651: A bed for the night and got it; Seacole was in Scutari en route to the Crimea to join her business partner and start their business. However, Seacole pointed out that when she tried to join Nightingale's group, one of Nightingale's colleagues rebuffed her, and Seacole inferred that racism was at the root of that rebuttal. Nightingale told her brother-in-law, in a private letter, that she was worried about contact between her work and Seacole's business, claiming that while "she

320-745: A bicycle. The word "pedestrian" also includes any person who is operating a self-propelled wheelchair, invalid tricycle, or motorized quadrangle and, by reason of physical disability, is otherwise unable to move about as a pedestrian, as earlier defined. Tiersma points out several confusing terms and formal jargon used in this definition that would be difficult for jury participants to understand. He highlights "to use like care" as being overly formal and "pedestrian" as being atypically defined including individuals using wheelchairs and "motorized quadrangles". The California Jury Instructions: Criminal (CACI) reworked these instructions and read: CACI 700. Basic Standard of Care A person must use reasonable care in driving

400-478: A feature is correct — but the whole effect is more expressive of spiritual grandeur than anything I could have imagined. It makes the impression upon one that thousands of voices do, uniting in one unanimous simultaneous feeling of enthusiasm or emotion, which is said to overcome the strongest man." At Thebes, she wrote of being "called to God", while a week later near Cairo she wrote in her diary (as distinct from her far longer letters that her elder sister Parthenope

480-455: A guide to officials on avoiding pompous and over-elaborate writing. He wrote, "writing is an instrument for conveying ideas from one mind to another; the writer's job is to make his reader apprehend his meaning readily and precisely." Gowers' guide was published as a slim paperback Plain Words, a guide to the use of English in 1948, followed by a sequel The ABC of Plain Words in 1951, and

560-484: A hardback book combining both, The Complete Plain Words , in 1954 – which has never been out of print since. Gowers argued that legal English was a special case, saying that legal drafting: ...is a science, not an art; it lies in the province of mathematics rather than of literature, and its practise needs long apprenticeship. It is prudently left to a specialised legal branch of the Service. The only concern of

640-424: A little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. The phrase was further popularised by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's 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. Nightingale was nicknamed "the lady with the hammer" by the troops after using a hammer to break into locked storage to access medicine to treat

720-737: A nursing pioneer in the US and Japan. By 1882, several Nightingale nurses had become matrons at several leading hospitals, including, in London ( St Mary's Hospital , Westminster Hospital, St Marylebone Workhouse Infirmary and the Hospital for Incurables at Putney ) and throughout Britain ( Royal Victoria Hospital , Netley ; Edinburgh Royal Infirmary ; Cumberland Infirmary and Liverpool Royal Infirmary), as well as at Sydney Hospital in New South Wales , Australia. In 1883, Nightingale became

800-442: A pedestrian or as a driver of a vehicle, has a duty to exercise ordinary care at all times to avoid placing himself or others in danger and to use like care to avoid an accident from which an injury might result. A "vehicle" is a device by which any person or property may be propelled, moved, or drawn upon a highway. A "pedestrian" is any person who is afoot or who is using a means of conveyance propelled by human power other than

880-528: A politician who had been Secretary at War (1845–1846) who was on his honeymoon. He and Nightingale became lifelong close friends. Herbert would be Secretary of War again during the Crimean War when he and his wife would be instrumental in facilitating Nightingale's nursing work in Crimea. She became Herbert's key adviser throughout his political career, though she was accused by some of having hastened Herbert's death from Bright's disease in 1861 because of

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960-566: A prolonged correspondence with Irish nun Mary Clare Moore , with whom she had worked in Crimea. Her most beloved confidante was Mary Clarke , an Englishwoman she met in Paris in 1837 and kept in touch with throughout her life. Some scholars of Nightingale's life believe that she remained chaste for her entire life, perhaps because she felt a religious calling to her career. Florence Nightingale died peacefully in her sleep in her room at 10  South Street, Mayfair , London, on 13 August 1910, at

1040-427: A strong desire to devote her life to the service of others. In her youth she was respectful of her family's opposition to her working as a nurse, only announcing her decision to enter the field in 1844. Despite the anger and distress of her mother and sister, she rejected the expected role for a woman of her status to become a wife and mother. Nightingale worked hard to educate herself in the art and science of nursing, in

1120-405: A vehicle. Drivers must keep a lookout for pedestrians, obstacles, and other vehicles. They must also control the speed and movement of their vehicles. The failure to use reasonable care in driving a vehicle is negligence. The CACI instructions are in common language and are more direct. Jury instructions that are more direct have been criticized, saying that using more understandable words would make

1200-546: Is a mode of writing or speaking the English language intended to be easy to understand regardless of one's familiarity with a given topic. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euphemisms to explain the subject. Plain English wording is intended to be suitable for almost anyone, and it allows for good understanding to help readers know a topic. It is considered a part of Plain Language . The term derives from

1280-829: Is now a legal duty for companies registering securities under the Securities Act of 1933 , due to rules the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted in 1998. In 2011, PLAIN (Plain Language Action and Information Network) published Federal Plain Language Guidelines . Linguist and law school professor, Peter Tiersma, wrote an article titled Instructions to jurors: Redrafting California's jury instructions in The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics in 2010. He outlines

1360-515: Is recognised as the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have". Notes on Nursing also sold well to the general reading public and is considered a classic introduction to nursing. Nightingale spent the rest of her life promoting and organising the nursing profession. In the introduction to the 1974 edition, Joan Quixley of the Nightingale School of Nursing wrote: "The book

1440-463: Is sometimes said to have denied the theory of infection for her entire life, a 2008 biography disagrees, saying that she was simply opposed to a precursor of germ theory known as contagionism . This theory held that diseases could only be transmitted by touch. Before the experiments of the mid-1860s by Pasteur and Lister , hardly anyone took germ theory seriously; even afterwards, many medical practitioners were unconvinced. Bostridge points out that in

1520-491: The 2005 London bombings recommended that emergency services should always use plain English. It found that verbosity can lead to misunderstandings that could cost lives. The National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) promotes plain English training and provision in Ireland. Since 2005, NALA has supported organisations and government departments to use plain English through its training, style guides and editing work. In 2019,

1600-513: The Crimean War , in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople . She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture , especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night. Recent commentators have asserted that Nightingale's Crimean War achievements were exaggerated by

1680-803: The Crimean War , which became her central focus when reports got back to Britain about the horrific conditions for the wounded at the military hospital on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus , opposite Constantinople , at Scutari (modern-day Üsküdar in Istanbul ). Britain and France entered the war against Russia on the side of the Ottoman Empire . On 21 October 1854, she and the staff of 38 women volunteer nurses including her head nurse Eliza Roberts and her aunt Mai Smith, and 15 Catholic nuns (mobilised by Henry Edward Manning ) were sent (under

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1760-648: The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses, and the Florence Nightingale Medal , the highest international distinction a nurse can achieve, were named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. Her social reforms included improving healthcare for all sections of British society, advocating better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that were harsh for women, and expanding

1840-543: The pie chart , which had first been developed by William Playfair in 1801. While common now, it was at the time a relatively novel method of presenting data. Indeed, Nightingale is described as "a true pioneer in the graphical representation of statistics" and is especially well known for her usage of a polar area diagram , or occasionally the Nightingale rose diagram , equivalent to a modern circular histogram , to illustrate seasonal sources of patient mortality in

1920-480: The 16th-century idiom "in plain English", meaning "in clear, straightforward language" as well as the Latin planus ("flat"). Another name for the term, layman's terms, is derived from the idiom " in layman's terms " which refers to language phrased simply enough that a layperson , or common person without expertise on the subject, can understand. In 1946, writer George Orwell wrote an essay titled, " Politics and

2000-685: The BBC released documentaries that were critical of Nightingale's performance in the Crimean War, as were some follow-up articles published in The Guardian and the Sunday Times . Nightingale scholar Lynn McDonald has dismissed these criticisms as "often preposterous", arguing they are not supported by the primary sources. Nightingale still believed that the death rates were due to poor nutrition, lack of supplies, stale air, and overworking of

2080-504: The English Language ", where he criticized the dangers of "ugly and inaccurate" contemporary written English . The essay focuses particularly on politics where pacification can be used to mean "...defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets...". In 1948, HM Treasury asked Sir Ernest Gowers to provide

2160-820: The Health Activities Literacy Scale (HALS). Many governmental organizations, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), continue to research methods and produce materials for implementing plain language and meeting health literacy needs. Using plain language in addition to, or in place of, medical terminology can help patients make informed health decisions. Potential obstacles to high health literacy can stem from socioeconomic factors, such as race and poverty. Research continues to develop on best practices for plain language in

2240-584: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released health literacy reports citing the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) results as a cause for concern. The 1992 NALS indicated that nearly half of Americans demonstrated limited literacy skills. The NALS did not explicitly look at health literacy, but it did cover health-related tasks. In response, researchers developed methods to measure health literacy, such as

2320-481: The Lamp" from a phrase in a report in The Times : She is a "ministering angel" without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with

2400-546: The MAB was not involved in providing care for the mentally ill. During its lifetime, it set up around forty institutions, beginning with three hospitals for smallpox and fever cases, and two large asylums for what were then termed 'imbeciles' – people with severe learning difficulties . This article about an organisation in England is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to government in

2480-924: The Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc. was her first published work. She also received four months of medical training at the institute, which formed the basis for her later care. On 22 August 1853, Nightingale took the post of superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street , London, a position she held until October 1854. Her father had given her an annual income of £500 (roughly £40,000/US$ 65,000 in present terms), which allowed her to live comfortably and to pursue her career. Florence Nightingale's most famous contribution came during

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2560-609: The Sanitary Commission had to be sent out by the British government to Scutari in March ;1855, almost six months after Nightingale had arrived. The commission flushed out the sewers and improved ventilation. Death rates were sharply reduced, but she never claimed credit for helping to reduce the death rate. Head Nurse Eliza Roberts nursed Nightingale through her critical illness of May 1855. In 2001 and 2008

2640-467: The United Kingdom or its constituent countries is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale ( / ˈ n aɪ t ɪ ŋ ɡ eɪ l / ; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer , statistician and the founder of modern nursing . Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during

2720-436: The acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce. Nightingale was an innovator in statistics; she represented her analysis in graphical forms to ease drawing conclusions and actionables from data. She is famous for usage of the polar area diagram , also called the Nightingale rose diagram, which is equivalent to a modern circular histogram . This diagram is still regularly used in data visualisation . Nightingale

2800-530: The age of 90. The offer of burial in Westminster Abbey was declined by her relatives and she is buried in the churchyard of St Margaret's Church in East Wellow , Hampshire, near Embley Park with a memorial with just her initials and dates of birth and death. She left a large body of work, including several hundred notes that were previously unpublished. A memorial monument to Nightingale

2880-614: The authorisation of Sidney Herbert) to the Ottoman Empire . On the way, Nightingale was assisted in Paris by her friend Mary Clarke . The volunteer nurses worked about 295 nautical miles (546 km; 339 mi) away from the main British camp across the Black Sea at Balaklava , in the Crimea . Nightingale arrived at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari early in November ;1854. Her team found that poor care for wounded soldiers

2960-404: The authority of Nightingale. The two were to remain friends for the rest of their lives. The second wave, headed by Mary Francis Bridgeman met with a cooler reception as Bridgeman refused to give up her authority over her Sisters to Nightingale while at the same time not trusting Nightingale, whom she regarded as ambitious. During the Crimean War, Nightingale gained the nickname "The Lady with

3040-487: The case of the Nightingale family and Florence in particular. She and Florence were to remain close friends for 40 years despite their 27-year age difference. Clarke demonstrated that women could be equal to men, an idea that Florence had not learnt from her mother. Nightingale underwent the first of several experiences that she believed were calls from God in February ;1837 while at Embley Park , prompting

3120-669: The cause. Most authorities today accept that Nightingale suffered from a particularly extreme form of brucellosis, the effects of which only began to lift in the early 1880s. Despite her symptoms, she remained phenomenally productive in social reform. During her bedridden years, she also did pioneering work in the field of hospital planning, and her work propagated quickly across Britain and the world. Nightingale's output slowed down considerably in her last decade. She wrote very little during that period due to blindness and declining mental abilities, though she still retained an interest in current affairs. Although much of Nightingale's work improved

3200-405: The cornerstone of the curriculum at the Nightingale School and other nursing schools, though it was written specifically for the education of those nursing at home. Nightingale wrote, "Every day sanitary knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It

3280-468: The death rate from 42% to 2%, either by making improvements in hygiene herself, or by calling for the Sanitary Commission. For example, Nightingale implemented handwashing in the hospital where she worked. During her first winter at Scutari, 4,077 soldiers died there. Ten times more soldiers died from illnesses such as typhus , typhoid , cholera , and dysentery than from battle wounds. With overcrowding, defective sewers and lack of ventilation,

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3360-855: The early 1880s Nightingale wrote an article for a textbook in which she advocated strict precautions designed, she said, to kill germs. Nightingale's work served as an inspiration for nurses in the American Civil War . The Union government approached her for advice in organising field medicine. Her ideas inspired the volunteer body of the United States Sanitary Commission . Nightingale advocated autonomous nursing leadership, and that her new style of matrons had full control and discipline over their nursing staff. The infamous " Guy's Hospital dispute" in 1879–1880 between matron Margaret Burt and hospital medical staff highlighted how doctors sometimes felt that their authority

3440-562: The face of opposition from her family and the restrictive social code for affluent young English women. As a young woman, Nightingale was described as attractive, slender, and graceful. While her demeanour was often severe, she was said to be very charming and to possess a radiant smile. Her most persistent suitor was the politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes , but after a nine-year courtship, she rejected him, convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her calling to nursing. In Rome in 1847, she met Sidney Herbert ,

3520-463: The family's homes at Embley, Hampshire , and Lea Hurst, Derbyshire . Florence inherited a liberal-humanitarian outlook from both sides of her family. Her parents were William Edward Nightingale, born William Edward Shore (1794–1874) and Frances ("Fanny") Nightingale ( née Smith; 1788–1880). William's mother Mary ( née Evans) was the niece of Peter Nightingale, under the terms of whose will William inherited his estate at Lea Hurst, and assumed

3600-999: The first nursing school, the Nightingale Training School, at St Thomas' Hospital on 9 July 1860. The first trained Nightingale nurses began work on 16 May 1865 at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. Now called the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery , the school is part of King's College London . In 1866 she said the Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital in Aylesbury near her sister's home Claydon House would be "the most beautiful hospital in England", and in 1868 called it "an excellent model to follow". Nightingale wrote Notes on Nursing (1859). The book served as

3680-807: The first recipient of the Royal Red Cross . In 1904, she was appointed a Lady of Grace of the Order of St John (LGStJ) . In 1907, she became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit . In the following year she was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London . Her birthday is now celebrated as International May 12th Awareness Day . From 1857 onwards, Nightingale was intermittently bedridden and suffered from depression. A recent biography cites brucellosis and associated spondylitis as

3760-597: The fund and the Duke of Cambridge was chairman. In her 1856 letters she described spas in the Ottoman Empire , detailing the health conditions, physical descriptions, dietary information, and other vital details of patients whom she directed there. She noted that the treatment there was significantly less expensive than in Switzerland. Nightingale had £45,000 at her disposal from the Nightingale Fund to set up

3840-560: The history of legal trials and how pattern jury instructions were developed in order to create an atmosphere in which jurors are given pertinent information to a case in order to determine factual evidence and guilt of an accused individual. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s in California, a panel comprising judges and lawyers drafted pattern jury instructions . These standardized jury instructions were problematic, as they were written using technical language rather than in plain English. In

3920-486: The instructions to use more understandable words, understanding got better by 47%. Tiersma provides examples of jury instructions in both legal English and plain English. In the Book of Approved Jury Instructions (BAJI) instructions regarding the care of motorists when operating a motor vehicle read: BAJI 5.50. Duty of Motorists and Pedestrians Using Public Highway Every person using a public street or highway, whether as

4000-445: The instructions' legal meaning less precise, though these criticisms have been refuted. In medical writing, plain language serves to meet patients at their level of health literacy. As defined by the Institute of Medicine's report, health literacy is "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions." In April 2004,

4080-403: The late 1970s, Robert and Veda Charrow studied jury instructions for comprehensibility, where individuals were asked to verbally summarize pattern jury instructions. The participants accounted for only one-third of relevant information given in the jury instructions. The Charrows further identified ways the language made instructions given to member of a jury difficult to understand. After fixing

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4160-754: The lot of women everywhere, Nightingale believed that women craved sympathy and were not as capable as men. She criticised early women's rights activists for decrying an alleged lack of careers for women at the same time that lucrative medical positions, under the supervision of Nightingale and others, went perpetually unfilled. She preferred the friendship of powerful men, insisting they had done more than women to help her attain her goals, writing: "I have never found one woman who has altered her life by one iota for me or my opinions." She often referred to herself as, for example, "a man of action" and "a man of business". However, she did have several important and long-lasting friendships with women. Later in life, she kept up

4240-411: The media at the time, but critics agree on the importance of her later work in professionalising nursing roles for women. In 1860, she laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world and is now part of King's College London . In recognition of her pioneering work in nursing,

4320-401: The military field hospital she managed. While frequently credited as the creator of the polar area diagram, it is known to have been used by André-Michel Guerry in 1829 and Léon Louis Lalanne by 1830. Nightingale called a compilation of such diagrams a " coxcomb ", but later that term would frequently be used for the individual diagrams. She made extensive use of coxcombs to present reports on

4400-441: The name and arms of Nightingale. Fanny's father (Florence's maternal grandfather) was the abolitionist and Unitarian William Smith . Nightingale's father educated her. A BBC documentary reported that "Florence and her older sister Parthenope benefited from their father's advanced ideas about women's education. They studied history, mathematics, Italian, classical literature, and philosophy, and from an early age Florence, who

4480-681: The nature and magnitude of the conditions of medical care in the Crimean War to Members of Parliament and civil servants who would have been unlikely to read or understand traditional statistical reports. In 1859, Nightingale was elected the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society . In 1874 she became an honorary member of the American Statistical Association . Plain English Plain English ( layman's terms )

4560-837: The ordinary official is to learn to understand it, to act as interpreter of it to ordinary people, and to be careful not to let his own style of writing be tainted by it... There is a trend toward plainer language in legal documents. Plain English Campaign has been campaigning since 1979 "against gobbledygook , jargon and misleading public information." The campaign has helped many government departments and other official organisations with their documents, reports and publications. They believe that everyone should have access to clear and concise information." The 1999 " Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts " regulations mandate "plain and intelligible" language. An inquiry into

4640-550: The other hand, Seacole told the French chef Alexis Soyer that "You must know, M Soyer, that Miss Nightingale is very fond of me. When I passed through Scutari, she very kindly gave me board and lodging." The arrival of two waves of Irish nuns, the Sisters of Mercy , to assist with nursing duties at Scutari met with different responses from Nightingale. Mary Clare Moore headed the first wave and placed herself and her Sisters under

4720-608: The owl Athena. Nightingale often carried the owl in her pocket, until the pet died (shortly before Nightingale left for Crimea). Her writings on Egypt, in particular, are testimony to her learning, literary skill, and philosophy of life. Sailing up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel in January 1850, she wrote of the Abu Simbel temples , "Sublime in the highest style of intellectual beauty, intellect without effort, without suffering ... not

4800-652: The poor condition of the facilities, the British Government commissioned Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design a prefabricated hospital that could be built in England and shipped to the Dardanelles . The result was Renkioi Hospital , a civilian facility that, under the management of Edmund Alexander Parkes , had a death rate less than one tenth of that of Scutari. Stephen Paget in the Dictionary of National Biography asserted that Nightingale reduced

4880-514: The pressure her programme of reform placed on him. Nightingale also much later had strong relations with academic Benjamin Jowett , who may have wanted to marry her. Nightingale continued her travels (now with Charles and Selina Bracebridge ) as far as Greece and Egypt. While in Athens, Greece, Nightingale rescued a juvenile little owl from a group of children who were tormenting it, and she named

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4960-672: The quality and clarity of their information. It also supports and contributes to evolving international plain language standards. In the US , the Plain Language Movement in government communication started in the 1970s. The Paperwork Reduction Act was introduced in 1976, and in 1978 President Carter issued executive orders intended to make government regulations "cost-effective and easy-to-understand by those who were required to comply with them." Many agencies now have long-standing policies mandating plain language; in 2010, this

5040-572: The reform of workhouse infirmaries. There was a particular concern that those suffering from infectious fevers and smallpox, and the insane, should be removed from the workhouses and treated in separate hospitals. The area it covered was the Metropolitan Asylums District which included the metropolis as defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855 , excluding the hamlet of Penge . Despite its name,

5120-430: The sanitary design of hospitals and the introduction of sanitation in working-class homes (see Statistics and Sanitary Reform ). According to some secondary sources, Nightingale had a frosty relationship with her fellow nurse Mary Seacole , who ran a hotel/hospital for officers. Seacole's own memoir, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands , records only one, friendly, meeting with her, when she asked her for

5200-426: The soldiers. After she returned to Britain and began collecting evidence before the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army, she came to believe that most of the soldiers at the hospital were killed by poor living conditions. This experience influenced her later career when she advocated sanitary living conditions as of great importance. Consequently, she reduced peacetime deaths in the army and turned her attention to

5280-422: The standard of care in his 1842–1843 published novel Martin Chuzzlewit in the figure of Sarah Gamp as being incompetent, negligent, alcoholic and corrupt. According to Caroline Worthington, director of the Florence Nightingale Museum , "When she [Nightingale] started out there was no such thing as nursing. The Dickens character Sarah Gamp, who was more interested in drinking gin than looking after her patients,

5360-411: The wounded. However, Russell thought the behaviour was unladylike, and invented an alternative, leading to "The Lady with the Lamp". In the Crimea on 29 November 1855, the Nightingale Fund was established for the training of nurses during a public meeting to recognise Nightingale for her work in the war. There was an outpouring of generous donations. Sidney Herbert served as honorary secretary of

5440-547: Was a prodigious and versatile writer. In her lifetime, much of her published work was concerned with spreading medical knowledge. Some of her tracts were written in simple English so that they could easily be understood by those with poor literary skills. She was also a pioneer in data visualisation with the use of infographics , using graphical presentations of statistical data in an effective way. Much of her writing, including her extensive work on religion and mysticism , has only been published posthumously. Florence Nightingale

5520-405: Was being challenged by these new style Nightingale matrons. This was not an isolated episode and other matrons experienced similar issues, such as Eva Luckes . In the 1870s, Nightingale mentored Linda Richards , "America's first trained nurse", and enabled her to return to the United States with adequate training and knowledge to establish high-quality nursing schools. Richards went on to become

5600-417: Was being delivered by overworked medical staff in the face of official indifference. Medicines were in short supply, hygiene was being neglected, and mass infections were common, many of them fatal. There was no equipment to process food for the patients: This frail young woman ... embraced in her solicitude the sick of three armies. After Nightingale sent a plea to The Times for a government solution to

5680-425: Was born on 12 May 1820 into a wealthy and well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia , in Florence , Tuscany, Italy, and was named after the city of her birth. Florence's older sister Frances Parthenope had similarly been named after her place of birth, Parthenope , a Greek settlement now part of the city of Naples . The family moved back to England in 1821, with Nightingale being brought up in

5760-582: Was created in Carrara marble by Francis William Sargant in 1913 and placed in the cloister of the Basilica of Santa Croce , in Florence, Italy. Florence Nightingale exhibited a gift for mathematics from an early age and excelled in the subject under the tutelage of her father. Later, Nightingale became a pioneer in the visual presentation of information and statistical graphics . She used methods such as

5840-439: Was incapable of boring anyone." Her behaviour was said to be exasperating and eccentric and she had little respect for upper-class British women, whom she regarded generally as inconsequential. She said that if given the choice between being a woman or a galley slave, then she would choose the freedom of the galleys. She generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals. Clarke made an exception, however, in

5920-733: Was made a federal requirement with the Plain Writing Act . In legal writing, David Mellinkoff, a professor at the UCLA School of Law , is widely credited with singlehandedly launching the plain English movement in American law with the 1963 publication of The Language of the Law. In 1977, New York became the first state to pass legislation requiring plain English in consumer contracts and leases. In 1979, Richard Wydick published Plain English for Lawyers . Plain English writing style

6000-407: Was only a mild exaggeration. Hospitals were places of last resort where the floors were laid with straw to soak up the blood. Florence transformed nursing when she got back [from Crimea]. She had access to people in high places and she used it to get things done. Florence was stubborn, opinionated, and forthright but she had to be those things in order to achieve all that she did." Though Nightingale

6080-413: Was the first of its kind ever to be written. It appeared at a time when the simple rules of health were only beginning to be known, when its topics were of vital importance not only for the well-being and recovery of patients, when hospitals were riddled with infection, when nurses were still mainly regarded as ignorant, uneducated persons. The book has, inevitably, its place in the history of nursing, for it

6160-612: Was the more academic of the two girls, displayed an extraordinary ability for collecting and analysing data which she would use to great effect in later life." In 1838, her father took the family on a tour in Europe where she was introduced to the English-born Parisian hostess Mary Clarke , with whom Florence bonded. She recorded that "Clarkey" was a stimulating hostess who did not care for her appearance, and while her ideas did not always agree with those of her guests, "she

6240-583: Was to print after her return): "God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for him alone without reputation." Later in 1850, she visited the Lutheran religious community at Kaiserswerth-am-Rhein in Germany, where she observed Pastor Theodor Fliedner and the deaconesses working for the sick and the deprived. She regarded the experience as a turning point in her life and issued her findings anonymously in 1851; The Institution of Kaiserswerth on

6320-470: Was very kind to the men and, what is more, to the Officers – and did some good (she) made many drunk". Nightingale reportedly wrote, "I had the greatest difficulty in repelling Mrs. Seacole's advances, and in preventing association between her and my nurses (absolutely out of the question!) ... Anyone who employs Mrs. Seacole will introduce much kindness – also much drunkenness and improper conduct". On

6400-615: Was written by the founder of modern nursing". As Mark Bostridge has demonstrated, one of Nightingale's signal achievements was the introduction of trained nurses into the workhouse system in Britain from the 1860s onwards. This meant that sick paupers were no longer being cared for by other, able-bodied paupers, but by properly trained nursing staff. In the first half of the 19th century, nurses were usually former servants or widows who found no other job and therefore were forced to earn their living by this work. Charles Dickens caricatured

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