NIGHTINGALES: THE EXTRAORDINARY UPBRINGING AND CURIOUS LIFE OF MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE BY GILLIAN GILL
By all accounts, Florence Nightingale was a saint although she belonged to a church that did not make such claim. A privileged Victorian family of sister, mother and father nurtured this enigma. A woman from the British upper classes ventured beyond the drawing rooms, beyond the nurseries, to find vermin and rats and sewage infesting Scutari and the Crimea where she nursed soldiers at war. To read of hospital conditions during the Crimean War is one thing, to see the organization, the singleness of purpose and the dedication that manifested a turnaround in those conditions, is perhaps difficult to fathom given current medical practices. Gillian Gill portrays an ambitious if eccentric Nightingale clan whose reach extended to 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Sibling rivalry between Florence and young Parthenope was staggering. The development of relationships within the family and those working for them is fully realized. This is a fine book. Let it not be forgotten that Florence's superiors in the Crimea were all male and they watched (and fumed) while a tiny woman succeeded where they had failed. Namely in the care of the wartime solider.
Judith Janone
Burlington, Vt.