Introduction
By the time she was twenty-one, well-to-do Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was sure that God wished her to exchange European society life for nursing. Her mother begged her to think again: her intellectual gifts and social position promised so much more. And in a way she was right.
AFTER reading distressing newspaper accounts of servicemen wounded in the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale, who at that time ran a women’s clinic in London, confided her frustrations to Sidney Herbert at the War Office.*
Herbert enthusiastically despatched Florence and thirty-eight nurses trained at her clinic to Constantinople. She arrived, days after the fateful charge of the Light Brigade on 25th October 1854, to find the hospital overwhelmed.
Well-travelled (she was born in Italy), well-connected and fluent in several languages, Florence was a godsend. She was attractive, her habitually sober expression breaking into an enchanting smile; but it was not a pretty face that the victims of gunshot or typhus needed. They needed someone to bring order, cleanliness and unblocked sewers to the choking, infected chaos.
Florence skilfully worked the press and her society contacts, lobbying the government into sending sanitation engineers and even prefabricated hospital buildings, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, out to the Dardanelles, drastically reducing the death-toll among the wounded.
The Crimean War lasted from 1854 to 1856, and involved an alliance of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire (based in Turkey) against the Russian Empire of the Tsars. It was bloody and difficult to justify, and the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, resigned over it. See The Crimean War here on this site.
Précis
Florence Nightingale was a lady of high social position who dedicated her life to nursing, and was subsequently commissioned by the British to reform their military hospital in Constantinople during the Crimean War. She used her leverage in Westminster to make fundamental changes to the operation of the barracks hospital, saving thousands of lives. (54 / 60 words)
Florence Nightingale was a lady of high social position who dedicated her life to nursing, and was subsequently commissioned by the British to reform their military hospital in Constantinople during the Crimean War. She used her leverage in Westminster to make fundamental changes to the operation of the barracks hospital, saving thousands of lives.
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Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, despite, or, otherwise, since, whereas, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did the British government send Florence Nightingale to their military hospital in Constantinople?
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Florence decided to become a nurse. Her mother was very disappointed.