Now available in paperback

Most of the heroes in the history of medicine (nearly all are men) have either discovered a remedy like penicillin or insulin, or developed a vaccine to protect against killer diseases like polio or smallpox, or introduced a bold new surgical procedure like heart transplantation. But Nightingale discovered nothing. Her forte was administration, and her main weapon was statistics. Did she even stalk the wards of the Barrack Hospital at Scutari at night? Yes – but with what to light her way? Mark Bostridge is no revisionist, but he does point out that the evidence from the 1850s has little or nothing to say about the lamp.

(LRB 4 December 2008)

Viking | hardback 646 pp. |ISBN: 9780670874118