After graduating from nursing school Florence worked caring for ailing Governesses in London and moved up quickly becoming the superintendent there. Having heard of her skills Secretary Of War Sidney Herbert asked Florence to put together a nurse corps for the Crimean War. The Crimean war was between Russia and Turkey. Russia invaded Turkey and the surrounding area which threatened Britain because they had economic interests in Turkey and India mostly due to the salt industry. The British forces took it upon themselves to get involved and remove Russia from these territories. When Florence and the other nurses arrived in the city of Constantinople they were shocked to see that the military hospital had been built on top of a cesspool. In the 1800s sanitary conditions were very poor. While being treated for war wounds many soldiers contracted cholera or typhoid; this would be known today as a healthcare acquired infection. Florence was one of the first people to realize and stress the importance of cleanliness to prevent the spread of infections. Florence even made the healthiest patients help clean the hospital. Many people did not take Florence seriously until she reduced the number of death at the British Base Hospital by 2/3rds and proved it with statistics; thus inspiring her career as a statistician. One of the reasons Florence enjoyed statistics was because they went along with her religion. As previously mentioned, in her youth, Florence ministered to the sick due to her belief that God called her to do so. However, as she grew older Florence abandoned mainstream Christianity and became what could be described as a radical feminist. She believed that there would be a second coming of coming Christ as a female. Since statistics often produce patterns she felt that this was the way God would reveal things to people. Florence felt that "to understand God 's thoughts, we must study statistics for these are the measure of His purpose"- Florence Nightingale, The Compassionate Statistician. This turned her unusual interest into something more respectable, especially for a woman because she was doing it in the name of God. Florence’s most well-known contribution to math is the creation of the polar-area diagram. The polar area diagram looks a lot like a pie chart but is the modern day equivalent of a circular histogram. Her first use of the diagram was to convince Queen Victoria of England that reforms needed to be made to improve the sanitary conditions of the hospitals. Florence had tried …show more content…
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