The herald., 1897-04-04
A NOBLE LIFE
Now Drawing to an Hon.
ored Close
THE HEROINE OF THE cRIMEA
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE AS
SHE rs TODAY
THE HEROINE OF THE cRIMEI
ssventy-seven Years Of Age--Forty
Years an Invalid but Her Mind
as Alert as Ever

Special Correspondence to The Herald.
LONDON, March 2S.-In trifie more
than a month the seventy-seventh
birthday of Florence Nightingale will
be celebrated, and the old lady. now
fast approaching the close of her long
life. will be inundated with loving mes
sages from thousands of high and low
degree, from the queen to the crippled
veteran, once an humble private in the
Crimean war.
Not many birthdays remain for Miss
Nightingale. For forty years she has
been practically an invalid. almost
since the day she set foot on English
soil after her return from the fetid hos
pitals of the Levant. Only the other
day she wrote to a friend: II am my
self always a prisoner from illness and
overwork." Her constitution was per-
manently wrecked by her two years
labor on the battlefield and in the hos
pital, but in these two years she earned
q place in the history of all time. After
the close of the Crimean war dinner
was given to the military and naval
officers who had served in the campaign
and 1t was suggested that each guest
write on slip of papar the name OF
the person whose services during the
Crimea would be longest remembered
by posterity. There were hundrends of
slips handed in, but there was only one
name mentioned, and that was Flor
ence Nightingale"
Miss Nightingale now spends most of
her time at Clayton. the beautiful home
of her nephew, son of her sister, the
late Lady Verney, in inghamshire.
IAx.r ft.fa la az fn
to the Verney town house, but these
visits are becoming rarer as the jour-
ney is too fatiguing. Miss Nightingale,
however, is as mentally bright and as
strong as ever and her interest in all
branches of hospital work has never
suffered decline through her physical
infirmites. She has been deeply in
terested in the relief work extended to
the famine and plague sufferers in In
dia. and has had much correspondence
with the heads of the various relief So
cieties on the subjest.
THE NIGHTINGALE HOME.
She also keeps abreast with all the
doings of the Nightingale home, an in
stitution for the training of nurses
founded Immediately after the close of
the Crimean war, Parliament voted q
gift os f5O,000 or $3.50. .OO0 to Miss Night
ingale on her return to England as rec
O6hitioii LII iiCi oCiNlttS Dut Silc Qt-
ciinod the money for herself. and it was
used to establish the Nightingale
home.
Miss Nightingale is a wealthy wo-
man arc was considered a great heiress
in her youth. Her father was William
Shore Nightingale, of Embley Park,
Hampshire. and of Lea Hurst, Derby
shire, two of the finest of the old time
estates in England. She was co-heiress
with her sister of her fathers wealth.
and were she so inclined a brilliant
life in the fashionable world was as
sured her
Miss Nightingale was born in Flor
ence in May, 1920 while her parents
were touring In Italy, She was named
after the City of Flowers" and she
has been called "a song bird from the
land of flowers" Dring her infancy
her parents returned to England and
made their home at Lea Hurst, an old
Elizabethan manor house, where her
childhood and young womanhood were
passed.
She and her sister were educated by
governesses and their studies were of
an advanced order for girls of that pe-
riod. Before her seventeenth birthday
Miss Nightingale was skilled in sci
ence. the classics and mathematics, had
q wide acquaintance with standard lit
erature, and was a fair artist, a clever
musician and an excellent linguist,
speaking French. German and Italian.
HER FIRST NURSING
About her early home there is legend
which tells of her first nursing. On the
estate there was an old Scotch shepherd
named Roger, whose collie was one day
stoned by some small boys. The dogs
leg was seemingly broken and the old
man was tearfully preparing to strangle
his pet to put him out of misery, when
Miss Nightingale learned of the acci-
dent and promised to nurse the injured
dog back to good health aain. She
bound up the leg in linen cloths and ap-
piled q hot fermentation. Later it de-
veloped that the leg was not broken,
but badly cut and swollen. Soon the
collie was as well as ever, and after that
every sick animal in the place was
brought to hen for medical attendance,
and later the peasants themselves re-
lied upon her skill to cure their cuts and
bruises.
Her father was a scholarly man. and
his extensive library contained many
works on medicine. This kind of litera-
ture absorbed all Of the attention Of
the young lady at this time, and the
vicar OF the place, who, In his youth
had studied physics, was called upon
almost daily to draw upon his medical
knowledge.
When she was IS Miss nightingale was
taken to London by her parents for the
customary presentation at court There
she met Elizabeth Fry, the reformer,
who had done so much for bettering the
condition of English prisons, and her
talks with this intelligent woman lee
her to take a great interest In the hos
pitals and charitable institutions of the
city. The following year she was taken
to the continent to make the regular
tour, but instead of devoting her time to
the dolngs of society. she took adyan-
tage of her visits to the different cities
to examine the various hospital eys-
TENS and compare them with the English
institutions.
This Interested her so much that she
spent nearly all of the next nine years
Of her life visiting the continental cities
and studying their nursing ssterhoods.
In 1851 she enrolled herself as a volun-
tary nurse in the Training home at
Kaiserworth, Germany. Later she
studied in Paris hospital. and then her
health broke down. necessitating re-
turn to Lea Hurst.
HER FIRST CHARGE
On recovering her strength she be-.
came Interested In London inetitu-
tion for slcka aged governesses, which
at that TIME was languishing for need
OF proper management. She placed her.
self al the head Of 1t, and devoted all
ner time to recognising It's troubled
affairs she trained force OF nurses.
Tor the pace was more Of sanitarium
than anything else, attended to the pre-
scrlptions and the finances, and IN 4
short tina succeeded in putting new life