Who was more important; Elizabeth Garret Anderson OR Florence Nightingale?
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) is a talented, driven middle-class woman who revolutionises nursing in Britain. After training as a nurse aged 33 (despite her family’s protests), she is put in charge of Scutari Military Hospital during the Crimean War. Arriving to find a filthy barracks with no beds, she and 40 nurses introduce basic hygiene and systematic nursing care. Her nickname ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ belies her fierce approach – she is often a thorn in the side of politicians. After the war, she helps change the entire approach to health and morale in the army, alters how hospitals are built and gets nursing schools established – mainly from her bed, which she takes to more or less permanently after her return from the Crimea. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) is the first British woman to become a licensed doctor (in 1865). She has to take a roundabout route to this goal, first becoming a nurse so she can learn medical and surgical skills directly from the doctors. After
