Evatt, G. J. H. (George Joseph Hamilton), 1843-1921; Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910
“Miss Nightingale belongs to that band of the great ones of
the earth who may be acclaimed as citizens of the world; her
influence has extended far beyond the limits of the nation to
which she owed her birth, and in a very special sense she will
be the great prototype for all time to those who follow more
especially in her footsteps, in the profession she practically
created. We must ever be grateful for the shining example she
has given to nurses, who in her find united that broad-minded
comprehension of the ultimate aim of all their work, with a
patient and untiring devotion to its practical detail, which
alone combine to make the perfect nurse.”
But as yet she was only humbly and diligently preparing herself for the
vocation to which she had determined, in face of countless obstacles, to
devote herself, little knowing how vast would be the opportunities given
to her when once she was ready for the work.
During the winter and spring of 1849-50 she made a long tour through
Egypt with Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge. On her way there she met in Paris
two Sisters of the Order of St. Vincent de Paul, from whom she took
introductions to the schools and “miséricorde” in Alexandria. There she
saw the fruits of long and self-denying discipline among the Nursing
Sisters, and in the following year she visited Pastor Fliedner’s
Institute at Kaiserswerth, where, among Protestant deaconesses, the life
of ordered simplicity and service showed some of the same virtues.
Miss Nightingale’s first visit to Kaiserswerth was comparatively short,
but in the following year, 1852, she went there again and took four
months of definite training, from June to October.
A deep and warm regard seems to have arisen between the Fliedners and
their English pupil, and the pastor’s friendship for Miss Nightingale’s
revered counsellor, Elizabeth Fry, must have been one pleasant link in
the happy bond.
Fliedner was certainly a wonderful man, and Miss Nightingale’s comment on
the spirit of his work was as true as it was witty. “Pastor Fliedner,”
she said, “began his work with two beds under a roof, not with a castle
in the air, and Kaiserswerth is now diffusing its blessings and its
deaconesses over almost every Protestant land.” This was literally true.
Within ten years of founding Kaiserswerth he had established sixty
nurses in twenty-five different centres. Later he founded a Mother-house
on Mount Zion at Jerusalem, having already settled some of his nurses
at Pittsburg in the United States. The building for the Jerusalem
Mother-house was given by the King of Prussia, and, nursing all sick
people, without any question of creed, is a school of training for nurses
in the East.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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