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The Lady with the Lamp

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

#Florence Nightingale #Crimean War #Scutari #British army #military #hospital #wounded men #nursing #21 October 1864 #social reform #hygiene #soldiers #The Lady with the Lamp

#albanian artists #marubiana #marubbi #Studio Marubbi #sazet shqiptare #saz #orientalism #ottoman empire #albania #Scutari #shkodra #albanian fustanella #fustanella #fez

1024x768 Line of I.M.A.M. Ro 37 of the 39th Squadron, 5th Group O. A. (Air Observation). Scutari, Albania, 1942.

#imam ro 37 #air observers #scutari #albania #ww2 #regia aeronautica #1942

Beautiful drawings from Leopold Forstner, a Viennese artist who worked in Albania and Macedonia during the First World War and has left us with a beautiful collection of drawings of different cities in the Balkans.. Later he worked as an “ “architect and landscape designer”. Drawings from his Albania collection. Years 1917-1918 1. View of the Mirahori Mosque - Elbasan 2. Road junction

3. Church tower Elbasan 4. View of an Albanian city 5. Elbasan

6. Shkoder/Skutari 7. Durres 8. Lezhe/Alessia 9. A Mosque in Durres 10. A bridge in Elbasan

#albania #elbasan #durres #drawings #leopold forstner #shkoder #scutari #mosque #church

Florence Nightingale Museum

On Westminster Bridge Road, a gaudy sign points interested parties towards a museum “celebrating the mother of modern nursing”, and proudly proclaiming “her inspiration” – though what exactly this latter point refers to is unclear. Having seen this sign on my way to the Florence Nightingale Museum, I had an uneasy feeling that I was about to witness much eulogising around the myth, and not the reality, of the Lady with the Lamp. I was mostly, but not entirely, wrong…

Its location in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital is a fitting place for the Florence Nightingale Museum, given that it is where in her later life Florence founded the first school for nurses – an institute that is still going to this day. The exhibits within the museum are more modern and (overall) more tasteful than the exterior advertising would suggest. The displays are broadly divided into three main sections, each with a distinct theme to it. The first, encircled by a fake hedge, covers Florence’s upper-class upbringing, how she rejected the expectation that she simply get married to a wealthy man, and instead set her heart on nursing. The second, a strange affair of Turkish tiles and bandages, focusses on the most famous period of her life: her mission to Scutari Hospital in the Crimean War. The final section, consisting of bookcases and cabinets, details her later life and work on healthcare reforms.

Throughout, Florence is portrayed as an intelligent, witty and driven individual – all true, though often her stubbornness and particularly her dismissal of early women's rights activists are downplayed, if not excluded completely. Her contemporaries barely get a mention – one panel for Mary Seacole (who was rejected from Florence’s mission) and nothing on Betsi Cadwaladr, who worked alongside Florence and also sought to fight the unhygienic conditions of the Crimean War hospitals.

However, it cannot be denied that Florence is an important figure to the history of nursing, and her story and achievements are neatly summarised in the museum – which does, to its credit, dispel the biggest myth associated with her. Amongst the many exhibits, which include Florence’s pet owl Athena (stuffed and mounted), the shell of Scutari Hospital’s pet tortoise Jimmy, and a host of antique medical equipment, is the famous lamp itself. It is not, as depicted in so many paintings, a spirit or oil lamp, but a fanoos, a Turkish lantern with concertinaed fabric.

Oh, and apparently Florence Nightingale manga is a thing…