Who Started the Modern Nursing Tradition? A Quick Lesson For Nursing Students

Nursing students, when asked who created the first organized nursing school, I'll bet the words "Florence Nightingale" are the first thing that come to mind.

Florence Nightingale was the pioneering nurse who volunteered her services to the British Army. Appalled by the lack of hygiene and decent care for the wounded soldiers she ministered to during the Crimean War, she wrote several books about proper nursing care and she rallied to improve sanitary conditions at all military hospitals. She was able to greatly reduce the death rate among soldiers by doing so. She later established the Nightingale School and Home For Nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital in London.

But while Florence Nightingale's work in nursing was nothing short of heroic, organized nursing actually started already in France - in fact, two centuries earlier.

The widowed Louise de Marillac, a woman from a well-to-do family, chose to minister to the sick and poor and it became her lifelong vocation. Along with St. Vincent de Paul, she helped found the Daughters of Charity in the 1640s, in Paris, France. The Daughters of Charity were an unusual order in that they were the first group of non-cloistered sisters; they went out beyond the nunnery walls to serve the poor directly. Before this, only men went out beyond the monastery walls to perform do charitable works.

Part of the mission of the Daughters of Charity was ministering to and caring for the sick. Wearing simple, peasant attire, they visited the poor in their homes and in hospital wards, cared for the aged and the mentally unstable, and attended to those in need.

Recognizing her role in the ministry to the sick and the needy, the Catholic Church in 1934 proclaimed Louise de Marillac as a Saint. She was only of the few nurses who were accorded such.

As you start your career in nursing, take pride in the fact that behind you is a proud tradition, started by women of courage who beat the odds and overcame the prejudice of women in a field once dominated by men only.