Florence Nightingale, the cat lady who changed the history of nursing

Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer who is considered to be the founder of modern nursing and she was also an amazing cat lady who owned 60 felines throughout her life.

At one point, she owned as many as 17 at once. She used to name her cats after prominent men of the day, such as British Prime Ministers.

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When a friend of hers was moving abroad and they couldn’t take the cat with them she took him in. Although she tried to find the Tom cat a good new home she ended up keeping him and named him Mr Bismarck.

Nightingale was one of 38 volunteer nurses from Britain who, during the Crimean War in the 1850s, went to medical stations in Turkey to help.

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When the nurses arrived, they discovered many of the soldiers were dying not from their wounds but from diseases like typhoid and cholera, which were rife in the army hospitals.

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She fought to improve conditions with better sanitation, nutrition and more supplies, which saw the death rate fall.

Nightingale improved the reputation of nursing and became an icon of Victorian culture.

She was also a prolific writer who penned works including Notes on Nursing. She died aged 90 in 1910.