As COVID-19 changes our world, we rely on our medical community to care for us and our loved ones more than ever. But their names rarely make the headlines despite their tireless efforts and personal risk. So in honor of National Nurses Week, we are dedicating this issue to all of those nurses who are serving around the world. As we look back at some of the nurses who did make headlines, we thank all of you working today who do not.
Florence Nightingale
Known as the founder of modern nursing, Nightingale gained fame when she went to assist British soldiers in the Crimean War in 1854. Called an angel and the “Lady with a Lamp” for the lives that she saved, she organized and trained nurses, instituted strict sanitary measures, and then proved that these things worked through statistical analysis. Her intellect was formidable and her devotion to healthcare and social reform admirable.
Mary Seacole
Though Seacole also provided medical aid to troops in the Crimean War, she is not as well-known as Nightingale. Not allowed to become an official nurse due to her race, Seacole used her own funds to provide natural remedies, food, and first aid on the battlefield to soldiers on both sides. “She is often seen riding out to the front with baskets of medicines of her own preparation, and this is particularly the case after an engagement with the enemy,” noted newspapers at the time.
Dorothea Dix
Dix is best known for her fights to reform the treatment of the mentally ill in institutions and prisons across the country. From numerous state institutions to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., she insured that institutions were create