Short
Stories
of Science and Invention
A
Collection of Radio Talks by
Charles F. Kettering
INDEX
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Weekly, from
September 1942
to July
1945, Charles F. Kettering gave five-minute intermission talks about Science and Invention during the
radio broadcasts of the General
Motors Symphony of the Air.
Kettering
invented the first automobile
self-starter, and for 31 years directed a research laboratory
for General Motors.
These radio
talks are a fascinating
legacy from the mind of a prolific inventor. The obvious
anachronisms now add a historical perspective of the
war-time period in which they were written.
These web pages now preserve some
of the most popular stories for a new generation to read The
text and art come from a General Motors booklet of selected talks.
(Reprint, March 1959)
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20. Lady of the Lamp
A Radio Talk by Charles F. Kettering
Today [March 11, 1945], the Red Cross is appealing to the American
people for continued support for its magnificent work of alleviating
human pain and suffering the World over. We perhaps can better
appreciate just what this means in time of War, by a brief review of
the career of a woman who nearly 100 years ago opened the eyes of the
World to the new science of nursing. We know her as Florence
Nightingale, but to the soldiers she was better known as the Angel of
Crimea or simply as the Lady of the Lamp.
Florence Nightingale was born 125 years ago in Florence, Italy. Unlike
so many of our other pioneers, she was the daughter of wealthy English
parents and reared more or less in luxury. As a young woman, she became
somewhat of a problem to her parents. They saw she was not happy in
being just a young lady of fashion. She had, what was to them, an
unhealthy and unnatural interest in Nursing. Nursing in those days was
far from what we know today. A hundred years ago the majority of
hospitals were centers of misery, suffering and in too many cases, dirt.
But, despite all this, Florence still wanted to be a nurse, and finally
persuaded her parents to let her attend the Deaconess Training School
at Kaiserwerth in Germany. For two years she studied and worked under
rigorous conditions but in. stead of being discouraged, she wrote her
mother, "This is Life! I wish for no other world but this."
 
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