Rating: 
Summary: Get to know a towering figure of the 19th century
Review: Like a fiery comet, Florence Nightingale streaked across the skies of 19th-century England and transformed the world with her passage. She was a towering genius of both intellect and spirit, and her legacy resonates today as forcefully as during her lifetime. She is one of the most towering figures of the Victorian age, which her long life spanned. Indeed, it is difficult to find her equal on the entire canvas of the 19th-century Western world. As a nurse for 33 years, I have naturally been drawn to Nightingale's integration of the art and science of nursing. However, like most of my colleagues in nursing, I gained only a meager and essentially trivialized picture of Nightingale during my professional education. When my interests led me to explore her life more deeply, I was awed by what I found. The farther my research took me, the larger Nightingale loomed-not just in nursing but in other fields as well, such as public health, statistics, hospital design, philosophy, and spirituality. We know Nightingale best as the founder of modern secular nursing, but that is only one side of her many-faceted life. The source of her strength and vision was a deep sense of unity with God, which is the hallmark of the mystical tradition as it is expressed in all the world's great religions. Evelyn Underhill, one of the most respected authorities on Western mysticism, described Nightingale as "one of the greatest and most balanced contemplatives of the nineteenth century." This conclusion was based on her life's work of social action, which she considered her way of serving God. It was this aspect of her life, one that has been largely ignored in other biographies, that I wanted to explore in my book. For without taking into account Nightingale's mystical nature, we cannot fully understand or appreciate her legacy. In today's specialized world, we are often tempted to compartmentalize our lives, assigning our professional interests to one corner and our spiritual concerns to another. To Nightingale, fragmenting one's life in this way would have been unthinkable. Her spiritual vision and her professional identity were seamlessly combined. Nightingale is therefore an icon of wholeness, an emblem of a united, integrated life. By her uncompromising, shining example, she invites each of us to find our meaning and purpose in our individual journey through life. May Florence Nightingale change your life, as she has mine. -BARBARA DOSSEY, RN, MS, HNC, FAAN
Rating: 
Summary: Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer
Review: The life and accomplishments of Florence Nightingale is an extremely difficult subject to examine. This complex and multi-facted women had an amazing intellect driven by her profound spirituality and and need to improve the well-being of mankind. Barbara Dossey is to be commended for her excellent biography which goes well beyond the usual recounting of dates and events. This volume is beautifully illustrated and analyzes many of the persistent issues which have surrounded Nighitngale including her extended illness. There is a well-developed analysis of Nightingale's motivators and motivations. This volume should be of interest to the general reading public as well as nurses.
Rating:
Summary: Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer
Review: The life and accomplishments of Florence Nightingale is an extremely difficult subject to examine. This complex and multi-facted women had an amazing intellect driven by her profound spirituality and and need to improve the well-being of mankind. Barbara Dossey is to be commended for her excellent biography which goes well beyond the usual recounting of dates and events. This volume is beautifully illustrated and analyzes many of the persistent issues which have surrounded Nighitngale including her extended illness. There is a well-developed analysis of Nightingale's motivators and motivations. This volume should be of interest to the general reading public as well as nurses.
Rating:
Summary: Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer
Review: This beautiful book is the most comprehensive and creative examintation I have ever read of the life of this remarkable woman. The book is profusely illustrated. Many of the images are in full color and have not been previously printed. Words and images combine to produce insights of incredible depth and beauty. The author's straightforward and readable writing style reminds readers of Nightingale's own writings. Clearly, Dossey has a connection with the fascinating Miss Nightingale that spans the boundaries of time and space. This is lucky for us, the readers of this sesntive portrait of one of the most amazing women in history. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in feminist history, healing, the path of the mystic, leadership, or the history of nursing. It will surely become a classic in its genre!
Rating:
Summary: Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer
Review: This beautiful book is the most comprehensive and creative examintation I have ever read of the life of this remarkable woman. The book is profusely illustrated. Many of the images are in full color and have not been previously printed. Words and images combine to produce insights of incredible depth and beauty. The author's straightforward and readable writing style reminds readers of Nightingale's own writings. Clearly, Dossey has a connection with the fascinating Miss Nightingale that spans the boundaries of time and space. This is lucky for us, the readers of this sesntive portrait of one of the most amazing women in history. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in feminist history, healing, the path of the mystic, leadership, or the history of nursing. It will surely become a classic in its genre!
Rating:
Summary: A timeless classic
Review: This biography of nursing's most influential leader is a tribute to her contributions ... and can serve as a way we can learn to integrate our personal and professional lives. This detailed, thoroughly researched biography is very readable and destined to become a classic. There are many photos, sketches and letters that add much richness to the book. The book holds a reader's interest and leaves one with a sense of awe and respect for Nightingale and her contributions.
Rating:
Summary: outstanding biography
Review: This is unquestionably the best biography of Nightingale ever written. The author reminds us that Nightingale was one of the first statisticians -- one of the first members of the statistical society in the U.K. and for many years the only woman member. Nightingale collected and published voluminous statistics about health care (she proved that the rate of childbirth fever was lower among women cared for by midwives vs those cared for by physicians and surmised correctly that the difference was that the midwives washed their hands and established hygiene in the birth chamber. The physicians came to the birth room covered with blood from dissections.) The germ theory of disease had not been developed -- but she was able to reduce the death rate in the hospitals in Crimea by ensuring cleanliness, safe water and good food for the patients.) She was also a suffragist and one of the first signers of a petition in support of suffrage put forward by her
friends, the philosopher John Stuart Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor, who were prominent proponents of women's suffrage. Mill asked Nightingale to dedicate herself to the cause of female suffrage and she replied that there were others as qualified as she; she was needed to reform the British military, hospital and medical systems. Nightingale shook up the British military, hospital and medical establishments. She had many enemies because of her work -- and they became even more virulent when she was proved right. Unfortunately their calumnies persist to this day. While doing the work which first brought her to public attention she contracted Crimean Fever -- a common complaint of those who served in the Crimea War. Dossey points out that recent research indicates that Crimean Fever was probably brucellosis which was and is epidemic and endemic in the Crimea. (It occurs now, too, in the U.S. among persons who work with infected cattle.) Nightingale was a very devout Christian. At 17 she sought a direction for her life. She came to feel that she was called to serve the sick and took a vow of chastity when she was 17. Barbara Dossey is an R.N. with a Master's degree in nursing. She has written texts on intensive care nursing and on wholistic health. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing -- which signfies the high respect of her research peers for her work. This is the finest contribution she has made and that says a lot.
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