Nightingale’s Theory

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), considered the founder of educated and scientific and widely known as "The Lady with the Lamp" wrote the first nursing notes that became the basis of nursing practice and research. The notes, entitled Notes on Nursing: What it is, What is not (1860), listed some of her theories that have served as foundations of nursing practice in various settings, including the succeeding and in the field of Nursing. Nightingale is considered the first nursing theorist. One of her theories was the Environmental Theory, which incorporated the restoration of the usual health status of the nurse's clients into the delivery of it is still practiced today.

Nightingale's theory was show to be applicable during the Crimean war along with other nurses she had trained, took care of injured soldiers by attending to their immediate needs, when communicable disease and rapid spread of disease were rampant in this early period in the development of disease-capable medicines. The practice of environment configuration according to patient's health or disease condition is still applied today, in such cases as patients infected with suffering from who need minimal noise to calm them and a quiet environment to prevent seizure-causing stimulus.

In environmental effects she stated in her nursing notes that nursing "is an act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery" (Nightingale 1860/1969) that it involves the nurse's initiative to configure environmental settings appropriate for the gradual restoration of the patient's health, and that external factors associated with the patient's surroundings affect life or biologic and physiologic processes, and his development.