The Life, Nursing, and Mathematics of Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale is famously known as “The Lady with the Lamp” for her watchful eye at night, solely looking in on sick soldiers while her forty other nurses remained comfortably away from the hospital (Tunstall, 2016). In this paper, I will discuss the life of Florence Nightingale, her work in the nursing profession, the work she did as a mathematician, and the impact that both of these had on the nursing practice. Florence Nightingale’s
Road to Reform Nightingale’s reform and career as a nurse really took off in 1954 when she began working at British hospitals during the Crimean War (Tunstall, 2016). She oversaw the introduction of the new nurses at a military hospital in Turkey (Cohen, 1984). Nightingale worked in hospitals that had terrible conditions. The bandages used for the patents were unsanitary, the water was rancid, and the food was repulsive (Florence, 2016). The hospital itself was filled with rats and flees (Cohen,