Just thought these two fun facts might interest your pupils, building on infants’ interest in animals rather than death rates from dysentery!
So the two facts are:
1. As a child, Florence already showed an interest in nursing by mending broken dolls and fitting splints to injured pets
2. Florence kept a pet owl which died the very day when she was about to set sail for the Crimea. She delayed her departure , (in fact to have it embalmed but you might like to leave this detail out!!) but when she arrived in Scutari the soldiers presented her with a new owl!
Having grabbed their interest with pet facts, you might then smuggle in some important history e.g. Florence’s most significant contribution to nursing was less to do with her time in the Crimea and much more to do with what she did later over a much longer to make nursing a proper profession and to educate people in the importance of sanitation
The other key learning point is that Florence’s hospital at Scutari was not a magic bullet that suddenly and dramatically restored soldiers’ to health. In fact, death rates in Scutari were 25% higher than even the fields hospitals largely because of the build up of so much infected material that just lay in inadequate drains, a breeding ground for disease .
