ABSTRACT
The idea that was gaining momentum in Florence Nightingale's writings on rural sanitation apart from 'self-help' and 'collective cleanliness' was the need for education, particularly sanitary education for village women. Florence was very much against what she described as 'the State Regulation of Vice'. Florence focused on Indian women's sanitary education at a relatively late stage of her Indian work, but she was extremely knowledgeable about the situation. The health education of Indian women, like their general education, was neglected until the second decade of the nineteenth century. Florence could visualise the immense impact that health and sanitary education could have on the rural community of India. From 1885 onwards, Florence involved herself in a project for the promotion of female health care and education in India. The last few active years of Florence's Indian work were spent in educating the zenana force by arranging suitable sanitary primers for them.
