Most of us have heard of Florence Nightingale who is regarded as the founder of modern nursing. But there were many like her. One was Edith Cavell, a lesser known yet remarkable personality who dedicated her life, too for the cause of wounded soldiers just as Florence did. Edith Louisa Cavell( 1865-1915) was a British nurse. Cavell entered the nursing profession in 1895 and in 1907 was appointed the first matron of the Berkendael Institute, Brussels, where she greatly improved the standard of nursing. After the German occupation of Belgium, she became involved in an underground group formed to help British, French, and Belgian soldiers reach the Netherlands, a neutral country. The soldiers were sheltered at the Berkendael Institute, which had become a Red Cross hospital. Cavell is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied for which she became a popular heroine of the First World War. However she was arrested and sentenced to death by Germans. Her death received worldwide condemnation too. This lady also finds special mention in between the lines of the famous WW2 novel "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah. Cavell's compassion for others was apparent as she confided her dreams to her cousin, "Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful. I don't know what it will be, but it must be something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy."
In a world which is facing a huge and dangerous pandemic today, we need more compassionate nurses like her who will work for the mankind and uplift humanity.
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