Sarah Gamp & Florence Nightingale

These two ladies, the antithesis of each other, belonged to the noble profession of nursing. Fortunately, the former was fictional, appearing in Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit", & equally fortunately, the latter was real.

Dickens memorably introduces (Mrs.) Gamp like this. "She was a lady of that happy temperament which can appear ecstatic just to establish a large & profitable connection." Her first priority in looking after a patient was to ensure endless victuals (preferably "cowcumber" sandwiches), tea & adequate liquor for herself. If the patient proved restless, a dozen or two shaking of his head by holding the collar, would be administered. If he turned giddy, as he might well be, it was all to the good. If he fainted, she knew how to revive him by biting his fingers or turning them the wrong way. After thus sedating the patient, she would settle down to her nap for the rest of the time. This paragon of nurses was too modest to sing her own praises but had invented an imaginary friend,  "Mrs. Harris", whose compliments to herself, she never tired of repeating to her listeners. Towards the end of the novel, she gets her comeuppance, being severely reprimanded to mend her ways.

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was also, surprisingly, a statistician, who pioneered the  Polar Area Diagram in addition to Modern Nursing & Hospital Management. Famously known as "The Lady with the Lamp", she is believed to have remained a virgin, because she felt a religious calling in her work. Her friend, the famous novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, went so far as to describe her as a "Saint."