Everything Everywhere Daily · Sunday, July 5, 2026
Florence Nightingale led a team of nurses to the Scutari Barrack Hospital during the Crimean War, where she found abysmal conditions. By implementing rigorous hygiene practices and improving patient care, she reduced the hospital's mortality rate from approximately 42.7% to 2.2%.
“When they arrived, they found overwork staff, hygiene being completely neglected, many patients with horrific infections, and no equipment for processing food, and medicine in short supply.”
“Nightingale's work was so effective that the hospital's death rate fell from about 42.7% to 2.2%, a reduction nearly 95% relative to the original death rate.”
“She was known to wander the hospital hallways at night caring a lamp and making her rounds from patient to patient. The soldiers were moved by her compassion and gave her the nicknames The Lady with the Lamp and The Angel of Crimea.”