Florence Nightingale ｜ 2 ｜ Nursing Training

It was difficult in England for women to get any medical training. So I secretly went off to Germany, where I enrolled as a student nurse at the Lutheran Hospital in Kaiserswerth am Rhein, which had been founded by Pastor Fliebner. I trained there for three months, and on returning to London I found my first job as a nurse at a middle-sex hospital caring for alien governesses. It wasn't really what I wanted, as those ladies were comparatively well off. I really had hoped to care for poor people who were sick. But I stuck to it, and it must have impressed my employer, who promoted me, after just a year, to superintendent. It was to prove a most challenging time for me, though, because there was a cholera outbreak at the hospital, which wasn't helped by the unsanitary conditions there. The cholera spread like wildfire, so I made it my mission to improve hygiene practices, which, when implemented, significantly lowered the death rate at the hospital. Then, as I was recovering from illness myself, war broke out in the Crimea.