ABSTRACT
Florence Nightingale was literally a legend in her own day. Neither the miasma of sentimentality, nor the exegesis of psychologists nor modern scholarship can destroy her achievements. For the best part of 50 years she laboured unremittingly for the ‘sake of the work’. She is rightly remembered for her work in the Crimean War, but work for nursing is but a small part of her reforming zeal. The Army Medical Service possibly owes more to her than does nursing. She probably made a greater impact on Poor Law nursing than on general nursing, and her designs for hospitals and barracks have stood the test of time for a longer period than probably her presentday successors can expect for theirs. It is not for nothing that Cecil Woodham-Smith, her biographer, described her as The Greatest Victorian of them all’. 1
