Florence Nightingale is very famous for her work as a nurse during the Crimean War, a hospital


reformer and a humanitarian. However, what is less known from this British woman is her love


for mathematics, especially statistics. Named after her hometown, Nightingale was born in Villa


Colombia in Florence, Italy, on the 12th May 1820, she was raised, by her parents, William


Edward Nightingale and his wife Frances. She had an older sister named Panthenope. Florence


was raised mostly in Derbyshire, England and received a thorough classical education from her


father, she loved her lessons and loved to study. Thanks to her father, Florence became reading


classics, Descartes, Aristotle, the Bible and political matters. He also taught her Greek, Latin,


French, German and Italian.


In 1840, she begged her parents to let her study mathematics instead of "worsted work and


practising quadrilles".But Frances, her mother didn't approved it and her father thought that it


will be better is she studied subjects more appropriate for a woman. After many arguments, her


parents gave her permission to be tutored in math. She studied with Sylvester, who developed the


theory of invariants. She was said to be Sylvester's best pupil. They studied arithmetic, geometry


and algebra.


Florence was interested in social issues, and had the necessity to help. She had the idea of


gaining some medical experience, but her family was completely against it. In those times,


nursing wasn't a suitable profession for well educated woman, becaus of the lack of training


and bad reputation of being ignorant and promiscuous. In 1849 she went abroad to study the


European hospital system, and in 1850 she began training in nursing at the Institute of Saint


Vincent de Paul in Alexandria, Egypt, which was a hospital run by the Roman Catholic Church


In March, 1854, the Crimean War began. Reports soon begin appearing in newspapers about the


disgraceful conditions being endured by the sick and bloody British...