Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), English nurse and hospital reformer. Nightingale is credited with establishing the foundations of modern nursing. Already an experienced nurse, she was appointed director of nursing operations at military hospitals during the Crimean War (1854-1856). There, her efforts to improve sanitation in the Scutari military hospital drastically reduced the mortality rate among the sick from 42 to 2 percent. In 1859, on her return to England, she wrote the textbook 'Notes on Nursing' and in 1860 she founded the Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St Thomas??Hospital in London. Portrait taken by Henry Lenthall circa 1856.