Damn, Girl-Hildegard of Bingen

Though armed with only a scant education, Hildegard of Bingen would go on to be the world's first known composer, a prestigious scientist, and a legendary prophetess. A true renaissance woman, it's difficult to know which of her achievements is most influential today. She revolutionized music, wrote medical textbooks used well into the renaissance, and proposed the idea that people, like plants, could inherit traits from their parents--some 700 years before Gregor Mendel did his experiments with pea plants.

Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard was the tenth child of Hiltebert and Mechthild, most likely members of the local nobility. The custom at the time was to give up the tenth child as a nun or monk to the Catholic Church, and as such Hildegard was sent to a Benedictine cloister at Disibodenberg, where she was put into the care of Jutta von Spanheim, a distant relative, and abbess of the cloister.

Hildegard suffered from illness as a child, and living in the austere Benedictine cloisters didn't help her. The damp, poor sleep, and lack of food and sunshine saw that Hildegard was bedridden for much of her childhood. In addition to her illness, Hildegard also had visions that she believed were sent from God. She was cautioned by Jutta to keep her visions quiet, and Hildegard did so for most of her life.

Page from the Liber Scivias

When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard succeeded her as prioress. Under Hildegard's leadership, the atmosphere at the cloisters became more relaxed. The sisters were allowed to wear their hair uncovered, and encouraged to step out into the sunshine. Hildegard was still having visions, and five years after being installed as prioress she had a vision so intense that she was prompted to confide it to her mentor, Volmar the Monk. Volmar encouraged Hildegard to record her visions, and with Volmar's help Hildegard began working on her first book, the Liber Scivias.

As a visionary, Hildegard had a fine line to walk. She had the challenge of recording what she saw, while not verging into heretical territory. Proposing new religious ideas, while easier for a nun than a common person, was still a risky venture, and could cost Hildegard everything should she be denounced as a heretic. Luckily for Hildegard, her visions were accepted by the pope of the time, and she was encouraged to keep writing.
Hildegard began to build up a reputation as a mystic. Her study of local medicinal methods saw her praised as a great healer, and she composed music for her nuns to sing. In 1150 Hildegard founded the convent of Mount St. Rupert in an effort to get away from the hoards of people who made pilgrimages to see her. Taking Volmar as well as a few sisters and novitiates with her, Hildegard started writing in earnest.

Because her education had been scant and interrupted, Hildegard relied on Volmar to help her with the actual physical writing. Her exact process is unknown, but it is speculated that Hildegard either wrote everything out on a wax tablet, and then Volmar put it to parchment, or that Hildegard simply dictated to Volmar. After the initial putting of words to paper, Volmar had his monks make copies of Hildegard's words. Though it took ten years, the Liber Scivias was finished in 1158.

Hildegard and Volmar

The Liber Scivias was disseminated throughout the Catholic countries, and Hildegard began working on her next book of visions, the Liber Vitae Meritorum. The visions contained in her books pertained to the workings of the universe, and how the earth, air, sun, moon, and stars were all connected. In addition to her books of visions, Hildegard also began working on medical textbook, which put forth the idea that boiling drinking water was a good move.

In addition to her writing, Hildegard also traveled Europe preaching pacifism, and promoting orthodox religious ideals. She founded another convent, and corresponded with hundreds of people from all across Europe, including kings and popes. She was so well loved that when she died at age 81 she was immediately dubbed 'St. Hildegard', though she was not formerly canonized until 2012.

Hildegard is best known today for her music, but her religious and medical writings have seen an increase in popularity in recent years too. Several biographies and novels have been written about her, and her song cycles have been recorded hundreds of times by classical vocalists. She is much beloved in the Catholic church, and the convent that she established still stands today.

Sources
Saint Hildegard, German Mystic
Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen: Life and Music of the Great Female Composer

Damn, Girl- Florence Nightingale, Lady With the Lamp

You've probably heard of Florence Nightingale, at least in passing, she basically invented modern nursing after all. But, heavens above, what an achievement that is. Nightingale was one of the first to insist on cleanliness and sterilization, meticulous record keeping, and giving patients nutritious food. During the Crimean War she cut the mortality rate of her hospital by 2/3rds, an amazing achievement, especially considering that the hospital was literally situated on top of a cesspool.

Florence was born into an aristocratic family, and at a young age showed a penchant for taking care of those in need. Deeply religious, in her teens Florence told her parents that God had shown her her destiny, and that her destiny was to be a nurse, and to help the sick (she's kinda like the medical Joan of Arc). Her parents were less than thrilled about this. They expected their daughter to marry an aristocrat and carry on the proud family tradition of being wealthy and marrying well, not work at what was considered a menial task. Nevertheless, Florence persisted, and she was able to receive nurses training.

After completing her training, Florence worked for some time in local British hospitals. Then the Crimean War broke out. Soldiers were dying en masse, and they were mostly dying from poor living and hospital conditions. Florence needed to do something about that. Luckily, she was friends with Sidney Herbert, the secretary of state for war. In a case of great minds thinking alike, she sent him a letter requesting to be sent to Crimea with a group of female nurses, and he sent her a letter asking the exact same thing. On November 5, 1854 Florence arrived in Scutari, Turkey.

Florence likened the Barrack Hospital in Scutari to the Kingdom of Hell. I mentioned before that the hospital was located on a cesspool. The cesspool poisoned the water and air. Soldiers were poorly attended, lying in their own urine and feces, and the hospital was severely overcrowded. Upon arriving in her living quarters, Florence found the body of a dead Russian soldier abandoned to the flies. The hospital was filthy, and reeked of death. This was, as one might imagine, completely unacceptable to Florence, and so she set to work.

Florence attacked the hospital mercilessly. She enlisted some of the more hearty patients to scrub the hospital from top to bottom, and recruited the soldier's wives to wash the clothing and linens the hospital needed to function. She insisted that medical instruments be sterilized, and that patients' wounds be cleaned, as well as the general bathing of the patient.

While all that may seem like a no-brainer to us today, it was not the case in Florence's time. From the 1500's to the mid 1800's hospitals were more a place to die than a place to get well. Filthy conditions were normal. Germs had yet to be discovered, so wounds went uncleaned, and medical personnel didn't wash their hands. Florence changed that.

But not only did Florence insist on cleanliness and sanitation, she also saw to it that soldiers received assistance in writing home to their families, established a library to stimulate minds, and insisted on around the clock care. She herself was known for wandering through the wards of sick at night to check on her patients, it was for this that she received the epithet 'Lady with the lamp'.

Eventually, the Crimean War came to end, and Florence returned to England. But she didn't leave empty handed. She contracted brucellosis, or Crimean Fever, a disease that would leave her home bound and bed ridden for much of the rest of her life.

Florence came back home to find herself a national hero, a development which both baffled and unnerved her. This fame was, however, to allow her to further her work in revolutionizing both nursing and hospital administration. She was granted a tete-a-tete with Queen Victoria, a conversation that resulted in the entire army health system being overhauled, as well as the position of minister of health being created. She received several hundreds of pounds, all of which she put into creating her own nursing school in St. Thomas Hospital.

Once back in England, she still had to dodge her family's demands that she marry Stubborn as ever, Florence refused on the grounds that she was deathly ill. Sub-sequentially, two female relatives, first an aunt and then a cousin moved in with Florence to care for her. Florence established a firm attachment with both of these women, in one letter saying that she and her aunt were 'like two lovers'.

Now, if while reading this you have a little voice in your head that's screaming 'GAY', that voice is completely justified in that argument. Not only did Florence describe her relationship with her aunt as being like two lovers, but she also spoke of a female cousin, saying "I have never loved but one person with a passion in my life, and that was her." Florence never married, and rebuffed marriage proposal from no less than four men. She seemed to have preferred the company of women over all, and was also known to have said, 'I have lived and slept in the same beds as English Countesses, and Prussian farm women. No woman has excited passions among women more than I have.' And while we will never be sure* if Florence was a bi or homosexual, it isn't an unfair assumption to make.

During her years after Crimea Florence not only established her own nursing school, but she also published the definitive guide to nursing, and provided valued statistics and mathematical formulas for calculating and prediction mortality rates. She remained an expert on public health, and was frequently consulted by the British government for ways to improve healthcare.

There's no arguing it, Florence revolutionized healthcare. She established procedures for modern nursing, and she elevated a once despised profession to one of the most valued professions today. She is honored to this day as being a true visionary and pioneer.


*Unless, of course, you manage to contact and interview her ghost. If you do manage such a feat, please contact me. I have much interest in gaining details of the past from those beyond the grave.

Sources
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Biography
Encyclopedia Britannica
Owlcation
Autostraddle