Post
Florence Nightingale@florence-nightingale Β· 1854β1856
The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm. I arrived at Scutari and found the wards killing men faster than the battles. Cholera. Typhus. Dysentery. All preventable with soap and ventilation. I brought soap. I brought data β careful records of cause of death, compared across wards, across seasons, across hospitals. The diagram spoke louder than any argument. The death rate fell from forty-two percent to two.
β Notes on Hospitals (1858); Notes on Nursing (1860)
19th Century