THE CENTENARY OF FLORENCE 
NIGHTINGALE* 
JOSEPH WALSH, M.D. 
PHILADELPHIA PA. 
Tn connection with the conferring of the di- 
plomas, the pleasurable duty has been delegated 
to me of offering you a word of congratulation. 
You now belong, by right of law, to the oldest 
profession in the world, for though nursing as 
an art to be cultivated, and as a profession to be 
followed is modern, nursing as a practice origi- 
nated in the dim past when the first mother 
stooping over her sick child cooled its brow with 
water from the brook; and, we have in one of 
the apocryphal books of Solomon a touching 
picture of Eve, then an early grandmother, 
bending over the little Enoch showing his mother 
how to soothe his sufferings and to allay his 
pains.f 
It is a far cry from the plains of Mesopotamia 
to the Chester Hospital; yet, the length of time 
is simply an indication of the slowness of prog- 
ress. It was even a long stretch to the founda- 
tion of the first hospitals. 
Hospitals, as we know them, were introduced 
by Christianity about the third century. The 
well-to-do among the old Romans were treated 
*Graduating Address to the Nurses of a Chester and Wil- 
mington Hospital, June 8 and 17, 1920. 
■(Though not quoted verbatim this idea is from an address of 
Sir William Osler. 
1 in their own houses, or in the private homes of 
individual physicians, the great mass of the 
serving population, like domestics, farm hands, 
clerks in stores, etc., were slaves, and when their 
illness was serious they were exposed on the 
Island of zEsculapius on the Tiber and allowed 
to die, or get well as the gods wished. All chil- 
dren born crippled, or otherwise apparently un- 
healthy, or even children whom the parents did 
not want, were simply thrown on the street. 
One of the first acts of Christianity was to ele- 
vate the status of women from that of practic- 
ally a chattel, allowing them an equal part in 
the deliberations and conferences, and I would 
not be surprised if it were yet shown that the 
foundation of hospitals and humanitarian insti- 
tutions is one of their contributions to the ad- 
vance of civilization. 
The training school for nurses is such a recent 
institution that it is still possible to find many 
places where it does not exist. Twenty-four 
years ago, when I studied in Europe, some of 
the largest European hospitals were devoid of 
them. ' In Paris the Salpetriere Hospital, one of 
the best known in the world had only lay at- 
tendants. These lay attendants were strong 
husky girls from the country, and during the in- 
tervals, when they were not actually looking 
after patients, they were employed in wheeling 
ashes in a wheelbarrow from the boiler rooms 
to the ash dumps and transporting back coal in 
the same fashion. 
I have never been able to give an address to 
nurses without some reference to Florence 
Nightingale; in this, the Centenary year of 
2 her birth, it would surely be amiss to overlook 
her. As Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, 
is the type on which all physicians can mould 
themselves with profit to themselves and credit 
to their profession, and has remained so for 
twenty-five centuries, Florence Nightingale will 
remain the type of the ideal trained nurse for- 
ever. 
Modest, retiring, and even shy, with the 
strongest antipathy to even honorable notoriety, 
she was weaned by the circumstance of her time 
into the greatest publicity. And in spite of her 
distaste for it, she went heroically on, overcom- 
ing her shyness in the face of life and death so 
that those around her failed to realize the mas- 
tery of self she was exercising; and, when the 
end came, every nation, and every people was 
proud to have had her live, proud to feel that 
she was a human being like ourselves-proud to 
claim this kinship with her. 
How different from her life is that of Francis 
Bacon. As this year marks the centenary of 
her birth, it marks the tercentenary of the pub- 
lication of his brilliant work on inductive phi- 
losophy. In the domain of intellectuality two 
names stand out, Aristotle and Bacon. In spite 
of the intellectual plane on which Bacon stands, 
we regret that he lived. There is nothing he 
added to knowledge, which we would not be 
willing to forego to have the stigma of his life 
wiped from the page of human history. With 
all his intellectuality he*only succeeded in writ- 
ing his name high with those of Judas Iscariot 
and Benedict Arnold. 
Lacking in intelligence to proper'y estimate 
3 as baubles distinctions bestowable by govern- 
ments, he cringed for an Earldom, and to obtain 
it betrayed his best friend Essex, the man who 
helped him over the rough steps of a beginning 
career, and had always remained his supporter. 
It was Bacon's efforts that actually sent Essex 
to the gallows for without his brilliant intel- 
lectual attainments to bolster them up, the 
charges against Essex would surely have fallen 
to the ground. Up to his eyes in debt Bacon 
retrieved his fortunes by marrying the rich 
widow, Lady Hatton. To gain credit with 
Queen Elizabeth, this big intellectual man stood 
by while poor old Peacham was put to the tor- 
ture in an endeavor to make him confess that he 
had circulated ideas against the divine right of 
kings, when there was never a scintilla of evi- 
dence to prove it. Eventually as Lord Chancel- 
lor, the highest officer of justice in the realm, 
corresponding to the Chief Justice of our Su- 
preme Court he was convicted of taking bribes 
from those who had come before him for jus- 
tice, for the best defense that he could put up 
was that he had taken fewer bribes than the 
previous Lord Chancellors. 
You have just passed through a professional 
course, and from my experience with nurses' 
schools, and my personal acquaintanceship with 
your directress, I am sure you learned the im- 
portant truth, either directly or by implication, 
that education is not merely a matter of increas- 
ing the intellectuality, -but, also, of developing 
the intelligence and strengthening the will; de- 
veloping the intelligence, or common sense, so 
as to distinguish between the important and the 
4 trivial in every day affairs, and strengthening 
the will so as to do what is right even though it 
is difficult or different from what* you see done. 
Bacon's education failed on two counts, the in- 
telligence, or common sense to recognize that no 
one in this world can honor or bring discredit 
upon us but ourselves; second, though he, un- 
doubtedly, knew what was right, he had not the 
stability of will to do it, but followed in the foot- 
steps of the politicians of his time. 
In this comparison with Florence Nightingale 
we cannot help recalling the first woman novel- 
ist, Frances Burney, the author of the delightful 
"Evelina." With a literary capability to enter- 
tain and instruct the world, which was raising 
her niche by niche high in the temple of fame, 
but with a love for publicity and a desire for 
association with the socially great, she gave up 
her real opportunity, her writing, and descended 
from her pedestal to practical oblivion to accept 
what appeared to her a distinction-the position 
of maid of honor to Queen Charlotte, the wife 
of George III. 
In her own sphere she counted as personal 
friends and enjoyed the frequent companionship 
of the writer, Samuel Johnson; the actor, David 
Garrick; the painter, Joshua Reynolds; the 
orator,. Edmund Burke, and innumerable like 
them. She gave these and her wonderful writ- 
ing up, it is ridiculous to relate, to stick pins, 
lace the stays, adjust the hoops, and mix snuff 
for an unappreciative mistress, who spoke Eng- 
lish badly, and hadn't an idea in any language. 
To make matters worse in her new royal apart- 
ments, the only one on a social footing with her, 
5 and who was her perpetual companion was the 
maid of honor the queen had brought with her 
from Mecklenbero- Strelitz, according to Ma- 
caulay an ignorant, irritable, old hag named 
Aladame Schwellenberg. 
Poor little Fanny ! Needless to say, when too 
late she regretted it. With an intellectuality of 
no mean degree, she lacked the will to go on 
with work requiring personal initiative, and 
lacked the intelligence to recognize behind the 
habiliments of a queen the form and mind of a 
nobody. 
The career of Florence Nightingale shows a 
very different brand of education-an education 
which rings true. Like Bacon she was a life- 
long student. Before she considered herself 
learned in her profession, she spent many years 
in its study. It is possible that more than once 
in the past three years some of you may have 
thought the curriculum long; Florence Nightin- 
gale doubled it, visiting and remaining at various 
of the hospitals on the continent with the Sis- 
ters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, and for 
two periods at the Lutheran Deaconesses Hos- 
pital at Kaiserswerth under the tutelage of Pas- 
tor Fliedner and his wonderful wife. 
On taking up her work in London, her indus- 
try and earnestness were so remarkable that it 
is not surprising it was on her the government 
called even as early as three years later. This 
call in the autumn of 1854 was to one of the 
great emergencies of the British Empire. The 
Crimean War had begun in the spring, there had 
been several reverses, thefe were five thousand 
wounded in the large English Base Hospital at 
6 Scutari, and the management had broken down 
• so badly as to become one of the scandals of the 
age. Every necessity for the sick and wounded 
was lacking, and patients lay weltering in pus 
and blood without being dressed till the band- 
ages became attached to the flesh. Every 
writer of the time states the conditions as in- 
describable, for in addition to a disorganized, 
over-crowded, absolutely filthy hospital, filled 
with vermin and rats, every medical and surgi- 
cal infection was running rife-cholera, typhus, 
typhoid, dysentery, erysipelas, gangrene and 
lockjaw. 
All England was aroused, and the cry of 
every English heart, and the expressed cry of 
the London Times, was-"Haven't we any com- 
petent daughters of England who, for the love 
of God, or the sake of humanity, are willing to 
risk their lives and go to the front to try to do 
something." 
This cry fired the spirit of half the women in 
Britain, and the difficulty now was to choose 
from the number applying. Florence Nightin- 
gale, having offered her services, was made the 
leader, and it was she who made the selection. 
Within a week from the publication in the 
limes, they had sailed, and two weeks later 
started in their work at Scutari. This band of 
thirty-eight, which Florence Nightingale took 
with her, was composed of fourteen Church of 
England Sisters, ten Catholic Sisters of Mercy, 
and fourteen lay women. Among the first of 
the newly wounded coming under their care 
after arrival, was the petty remnant of the six 
7 hundred who participated in the charge of the 
Light Brigade. 
By far the most important of the mismanage- 
ment at Scutari was due to the official red tape 
surrounding everything. With a capability 
equal to the great emergency, Florence Nightin- 
gale ruthlessly broke through it. Locked up 
stores with keys inaccessible, because hidden be- 
hind the doors of officialdom, she opened by 
force. On her own authority she commandeered 
assistance, and when necessary from her own 
pocket purchased new supplies, and in an in- 
credible space of time, considering her thirty- 
eight nurses to five thousand patients, had ac- 
complished an Augean task worthy of a real 
Hercules, while preserving the friendship of her 
associates, endearing herself to the patients, 
commanding the respect of the officers, and/fhe 
admiration of the world. 
Beginning without reason, and ending without 
accomplishment, the Crimean War will, never- 
theless, always be remembered for two events: 
first, the sublime charge of the Light Brigade 
at Balaclava, when under mistaken orders the 
illustrious six hundred rode unhesitatingly into 
the cannons' mouths; and, second, the arrival 
ten days later of this band, this arrival becom- 
ing for all future ages, the spectacular introduc- 
tion onto the stage of life of the modern trained 
nurse in the person of Florence Nightingale. 
On the cessation of hostilities, Florence 
Nightingale's name was in every mouth in Brit- 
ain, there was not a child in arms who had not 
heard her. With the exception of Jeanne D'Arc, 
the world never beheld such enthusiasm over a 
8 woman. A man-of-war was placed at her dis- 
posal by orders of the Government to bring her 
home, and a triumphal reception planned, but in 
the modest unassuming manner natural to her, 
she slipped back on a French ship, and was in 
the midst of her friends in the country before 
the news of her arrival leaked out. As a testi- 
monial, a purse was started, but learning she 
would be unwilling to accept it, the $250,000 col- 
lected was devoted to the foundation of the 
Nightingale School for Nurses. 
While Bacon married for money to acquire 
ease, turned traitor for an Earldom, and took 
bribes from people who came before him for 
justice, Florence Nightingale left a life of ease 
for that of the hardest work, risked her life to 
help the men who defended her, and refused a 
fortune legitimately bestowed, because she 
would be beholden to nobody. 
Following a period of recuperation, which she 
sorely needed after her two years strenuous 
work in the East, Florence Nightingale assumed 
the Directorship of the Nightingale School for 
Nurses, and here were educated girls who grad- 
ually drifted to all parts of the world spreading 
the ideas of the Mother of Trained Nursing. 
Though founded in England, Trained Nurs- 
ing has had its greatest development in America, 
and we have carried it so far that I have no 
hesitation in saying that the education of the 
Trained Nurse to-day is probably the broadest 
and most satisfactory extended to woman. In- 
struction in cleanliness, not only ordinary but 
scientific cleanliness, in anatomy and physiology, 
in the knowledge and management of disease, in 
9 preventive medicine and domestic science, makes 
the nurse one of the most valuable assets of a 
community. Moreover, in spite of the fact that 
considerable time is spent in increasing the in- 
tellectuality by the study of deep sciences, she 
has such a close-up view of life at its worst and 
at its best, that she acquires special capability in 
the estimation of things of the world at their 
proper value, and she is obliged to do so much 
in the way of duty which is disagreeable that 
the will power to do right ought to be hers for- 
ever. No wonder that the ranks of nurses are 
so depleted by matrimony, for there is no sys- 
tem of education which makes a girl more fit to 
become the head of a household. 
With this I have come to what I was dele- 
gated to do-to congratulate you on your choice 
of profession, and the success you have achieved 
in mastering it. We wish you a busy and useful 
life, and if you have this, we are sure it will, 
also, be a happy one. 
2026 Chestnut Street. 
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