Florence Nightingale helped make hospitals cleaner and more efficient, she helped make nursing an important, respected profession, and helped change the world around her into a better, more caring place. Would you like to be in a dirty, smelly hospital with fleas and rats? Would you want to have a nurse care for you who knows nothing about diseases or nursing? Well that’s the way it would be--if it wasn’t for a woman pioneer set out to improve hospital conditions. That woman was Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy. She was named after the city that she was born in. Her mother loved gaiety, a