"Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) achieved fame for her leadership of a group of British nurses during the Crimean War. After the war, she dedicated herself to promoting public health. She became one of history's most famous invalids, following a collapse at the age of thirty-seven which left her bedridden for more than ten years."--BOOK JACKET.

"By carefully reconstructing the chronology of events that led to her breakdown, Hugh Small has produced a new and startling explanation of Florence Nightingale's actions. After describing her unusual upbringing the author compares the conflicting contemporary accounts of what really happened in Nightingale's hospital at Scutari, near Constantinople, during the war.

By tracing the gradual emergence of information in the war's aftermath, Small shows that there was an official cover-up of a public health disaster. Drawing on recent research by army historians, he shows how the cover-up involved Florence Nightingale in Queen Victoria's conflict with the Government over royal control of the Army."--BOOK JACKET.