title: Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: which is the forgotten hero of health care and why?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper aims at correcting misinformation in circulation portraying Mary Seacole as a nurse, Crimean War heroine, and health care pioneer, even, for some, a replacement for Florence Nightingale, who really was a health care pioneer as well as being the major founder of the modern profession of nursing.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The article focuses on the claims for Seacole made by C. Short in Scottish Medical Journal, 2011. It reports, using primary sources, on what Seacole actually did--running a business for officers, with kind acts on the side--short of constituting heroism, pioneering health care or nursing.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The article concludes with remarks on how Nightingale came to be forgotten as a health care pioneer, with comments on the two major sources that attacked her reputation, F.B. Smith in 1982, and Hugh Small in 1998. Detailed refutations in peer-reviewed sources are referenced. Finally, it is suggested that recent scandals in English hospital care, documented in the Francis Report, may provoke a revival of interest in Nightingale's principles and methods.
authors.affiliation: Professor Emerita, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph, Canada.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McDonald
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce / Q000266:history; D047849:Crimean War; D006676:History of Nursing; D049672:History, 19th Century; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000266:history; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Crimean War; Health care pioneers; history