In the mid-19th century, during the heyday of the British Empire, it was assumed that a woman’s destiny was to stay at home and care for children. Only the poorest women worked, unable to make ends meet without it. Caring for the sick was considered a bad job because it required working in terrible conditions and for a pittance of pay. Attitudes towards the work of nurses and women's work in general changed in many ways thanks to the British Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). Born into a wealthy family, she saw her calling as a nurse. Florence Nightingale had to overcome the discontent of her relatives and the hostility of many male doctors. However, this amazing woman, showing perseverance, managed to shake the patriarchal foundations of the society of that time. It seemed to Nightingale that it was not enough to engage in ordinary charity, and she went to the Crimean War in order to provide medical care to the wounded. She was the first to try to improve patient care. In war conditions, it was a matter of life and death for many thousands of wounded soldiers. The Nightingale Foundation, created in support of the heroine of today's issue, allowed her to create the first School of Sisters of Mercy in England. The efforts of F. Nightingale not only led to a significant reduction in mortality in hospitals, but also made a real revolution in medical services. The name Nightingale has become synonymous with “sister of mercy” in the West. When talking about the history of nursing, it is often divided into two periods - before and after Nightingale. Her ideas and reforms carried out in England turned out to be truly epoch-making. Nightingale expressed the essence of the activities of nurses in a short phrase, calling them “missionaries of health.” At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, caring for the sick turned from the main thing into an auxiliary means of healing. The quality of medical supplies and equipment came first. The form of patient care has also changed: if previously they treated the patient, now they treat his illness. As a result, the point of view of the patients themselves changed, and they began to hope not so much for “care” as for “treatment.” However, at present, more and more medical workers are convinced that it is the patients who need to be treated, and not their illnesses, and therefore they should move away from “specialized” ones and return to “synthetic” methods of restoring the health of patients. Thus, they are forced to recognize that proper patient care is more important than was commonly believed until recently.