Two recent publications offer different assessment of the career of the famous British nurse Florence Nightingale. A book by Anne Summers seeks to debunk the idealizations and present a reality at odds with
Nightingale’s heroic reputation. According to Summers, Nightingale’s importance during the Crimean War has been exaggerated: not until near the war’s end did she become supervisor of the female nurses.
Additionally, Summers writes that the contribution of the nurses to the relief of the wounded was at best marginal. The prevailing problems of military medicine were caused by army organizaitonal pratices, and
the addition of a few nurses to the medical staff could be no more than symbolic. Nightingale’s place in the national pantheon, Summers asserts, is lrgely due to the propagandistic efforts of contemporary newspaper
reporters.
By contrast, the editors of a new volume of Nightingale’s letters view Nightingale as a person who significantly influenced not only her own age but also subsequenct generations. They highlight her ongoing
efforts to reform sanitary conditions after the war. For example, when she leanred that peacetime living conditions in British barracks were so horrible that the death rate of enlisted men far exeeded that of
236 neighboring civilian populations, she succeeded in persuading the government to establish a Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. She used sums raised through public contributions to found a
nurses’ traning hospital in London. Even in administrative matters, the editors assert, her practical intelligence was formidable: as recently as 1947 the British Army’s medical services were still using the
cost-accounting system she had devised in the 1860’s.
I believe that the evidence of her letters supports continued respect for Nightingale’s brilliance and creativity. When counseling a village schoolmaster to encourage children to use their faculties of observation, she sounds like a modern educator. Her insistence on classifying the problems of the needy in order to devise appropriate treatments is similar to the approach of modern social workers. In sum, although Nightingale may not have achieved all of her goals during the Crimean War, her breadth of vision and ability to realize ambitious projects have earned her an eminent place among the ranks of social pioneers.
73. The passage is primarily concerned with evaluating
(A) the importance of Florence Nightingale’s innovations in the field of nursing
(B) contrasting approaches to the writing of historical biography
(C) contradictory accounts of Florence Nightingale’s historical significance
(D) the quality of health care in nineteenth-century England
(E) the effect of the Crimean War on developments in the field of health care
why is B incorrect and C Correct
Nightingale’s heroic reputation. According to Summers, Nightingale’s importance during the Crimean War has been exaggerated: not until near the war’s end did she become supervisor of the female nurses.
Additionally, Summers writes that the contribution of the nurses to the relief of the wounded was at best marginal. The prevailing problems of military medicine were caused by army organizaitonal pratices, and
the addition of a few nurses to the medical staff could be no more than symbolic. Nightingale’s place in the national pantheon, Summers asserts, is lrgely due to the propagandistic efforts of contemporary newspaper
reporters.
By contrast, the editors of a new volume of Nightingale’s letters view Nightingale as a person who significantly influenced not only her own age but also subsequenct generations. They highlight her ongoing
efforts to reform sanitary conditions after the war. For example, when she leanred that peacetime living conditions in British barracks were so horrible that the death rate of enlisted men far exeeded that of
236 neighboring civilian populations, she succeeded in persuading the government to establish a Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. She used sums raised through public contributions to found a
nurses’ traning hospital in London. Even in administrative matters, the editors assert, her practical intelligence was formidable: as recently as 1947 the British Army’s medical services were still using the
cost-accounting system she had devised in the 1860’s.
I believe that the evidence of her letters supports continued respect for Nightingale’s brilliance and creativity. When counseling a village schoolmaster to encourage children to use their faculties of observation, she sounds like a modern educator. Her insistence on classifying the problems of the needy in order to devise appropriate treatments is similar to the approach of modern social workers. In sum, although Nightingale may not have achieved all of her goals during the Crimean War, her breadth of vision and ability to realize ambitious projects have earned her an eminent place among the ranks of social pioneers.
73. The passage is primarily concerned with evaluating
(A) the importance of Florence Nightingale’s innovations in the field of nursing
(B) contrasting approaches to the writing of historical biography
(C) contradictory accounts of Florence Nightingale’s historical significance
(D) the quality of health care in nineteenth-century England
(E) the effect of the Crimean War on developments in the field of health care
why is B incorrect and C Correct
