Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 in Florence, Italy, the daughter of a wealthy landowner who was involved in the anti-slavery movement. He saw that she was educated in the classics as well as math and science. At the age of 17, she felt that she was called by God to some higher unknown purpose. (Ferrence and Nick, 2000)

Florence rejected many proposals of marriage. Going against her upper class parents' wishes, at the age of 25 she decided to become a nurse, a job usually reserved for the lower classes. It wasn't until age 31 that her parents relented. She went to Germany to study nursing. Two years later, she was appointed as superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in London. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Florence took 38 nurses to Turkey. She found the conditions deplorable.

In these conditions, it was not surprising that...
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