Nightingale Trains at Kaiserswerth

Against her family’s wishes, Nightingale spent three months learning nursing at the Kaiserswerth institute in Germany.

Florence Nightingale, the daughter of a wealthy family, felt called by God in 1837 at the age of seventeen, but for years did not know to what. When she said she wanted to nurse, her family was appalled: hospital nursing was then work for poor, untrained women, and drunken nurses were common.

Nightingale quietly visited hospitals across Europe, and in 1851 at last spent three months training at the Protestant Deaconess Institute at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine. In 1853 she became superintendent of a London institution for sick gentlewomen in Harley Street — her first post in nursing.