For nearly 200 years, Florence Nightingale’s name has been synonymous with gentle compassion and mercy^[1].

In the mid-19th century, Nightingale became perhaps the most celebrated woman^[2] of her era – second only to Queen Victoria – for instituting sanitation practices that sharply cut death rates among British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War. A handsome bronze statue^[3] in London’s Waterloo Place has immortalized...