hat occurs later in her life. (Bull,1985)
             Florence suffered from trances and dizzy spells to which she would lose consciousness for a few minutes or even longer and when she would regain consciousness
             she was unaware of what had just occurred and sometimes of her surroundings. In current biographies it is written that these trances may have been a form of epilepsy, which was unheard of in that era.(Kiefer 2000). These trances made Florence fear that she was unworthy of god and meant she was unworthy of her calling. Until the spring of 1844 she came to believe her calling was to heal the sick. Her parents refused to allow her to become a nurse as in the mid-nineteenth century it was not considered a suitable profession for a well educated woman. It was here in 1844 when her journey into nursing began. Florence decided to "devote herself to works of charity in hospitals and elsewhere as catholic sisters do".
             It was that year that her cousin Henry Nicholson proposed marriage but once again she declined.
             In 1846 Florence was let into a secret, Lord Ashley told her about the government reports called Blue Books. She started to become a self-taught expert on hospitals and sanitation.
             The next year Richard Monckton Milnes Proposed to Florence and revealed his great love for her. Not to her families surprise but to their disappointment she once again declined.
             In her diary entry Florence reveals the reason behind her refusal.
             "I have moral, an active nature which requires satisfaction and that, I would not find in his life. I could not satisfy this nature by spending a life with him in making society and arranging domestic things" (Monteiro 1974). However their are contradictions to when she actually refused the proposal Smith (1950) quotes that after seven years of waiting Florence finally rejects his proposal in 1849 after much agonising, she conclud
             ...