The Museum holds a unique collection of artefacts and is the only place where you can learn the full story of this remarkable...
Find out more
The Museum offers sessions to primary and secondary schools every weekday..
From Florence’s slate she used as a child, her pet owl Athena, to the Turkish lantern used in the Crimean War, the collection...
Find out more
Miasma1 January 2009 - April 2009 An installation by Susie MacMurray in response to Florence Nightingale’s miasma theory using contemporary materials. Thousands of disposable latex gloves hung from strips of crepe bandage smothered a wall over 12 metres long in an art installation at the Museum. Florence Nightingale wrote about miasmas in "Notes on Nursing" first published in 1859 and still in print today. Like her contemporaries, she (mistakenly) believed that pockets of bad air spread infection. But, she also correctly saw the relation between a lack of cleanliness and disease and her notes encouraged cleanliness in healthcare. Nightingale subsequently became celebrated for her work in making hospitals clean, fresh and airy. Susie MacMurray made Miasma in response to Nightingale’s theory using contemporary materials. She says "Nightingale made vast improvements in nursing and hygiene. The struggle for good practice in the battle against disease and infection continues throughout healthcare, enlisting legions of surgical gloves and sterile sutures against the likes of MRSA and C-Difficile". Miasma was the first contemporary art installation at the Florence Nightingale Museum and was MacMurray’s first solo show in London. |
  |