RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Niemeyer Nikon
Bernoulli, Franz Overbeck und Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Freundschaft, Jena, 1908; J. M. Kennedy, The Quintessence of Nietzsche, London, 1909; M. A. Mugge, Friedrich Nietzsche: his Life and Work, London and New York, 1909; A. R. Orage, Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism, New York, 1910.
NIGERIA. See Afbica, II.
NIGHTINGALE, FLORENCE : Philanthropist and pioneer in the care of the wounded on the field of battle; b. at Florence, Italy, May 15, 1820; d. at London Aug. 13, 1910. She was the daughter of William Edward Nightingale of Embley Park, Hampshire, England, and in early youth she manifested a love of nature and a tendency to the care of the suffering. During her first season in town, after her presentation, she employed her time in visiting hospitals and like institutions for the purpose of learning the methods used, and next made a tour on the continent to examine conditions there. She took a course of training at the Deaconess Institution at Kaiserswerth, and then at Paris studied the nursing system of the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. At home she reorganized the Governesses' Sanatorium in Harley Street, London. In 1854 England received reports of the terrible conditions in the Crimea, where the hospital service was comparatively worthless. Miss Nightingale both volunteered and was invited to proceed thither, and started with a staff of nurses on Oct. 24, reaching Scutari Nov. 4, just after the battle of Balaclava. There her enlightened and self-sacrificing labors, in which she spared herself not at all, had the result of reducing the death-rate from forty to two per cent. Although she was herself attacked by fever, she remained at her post, returning only when the British forces evacuated Turkey. She modestly avoided the national reception which was prepared in her honor and returned quietly to her home, but with health greatly affected by her experiences and labors. In recognition of her services £50,000 was raised by popular subscription, and with this she founded the Nightingale home for the training of nurses at St. Thomas's and King's College Hospitals. She continued to do work in the direction of reform of sanitary conditions in the army, anticipating in many respects the most recent prescriptions in respect to asepsis and antisepsis, especially emphasizing the duty of cleanliness. She was continually consulted on matters germane to the health of patients in hospitals and of inmates of institutions of various sorts, and led also in movements to improve the condition of the poor by better sanitation in their homes.
Besides papers read before societies on the subjects in which she was interested, she publisned Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army (London, 1858); Notes on Hospitals (1859); Notes on Nursing: what it is, and what it is not (1860, latest ed., 1909; a book the effects of which can not be estimated) ; Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes (1861); Observations on the Sanitary State of the Army in India (1863); How People may live and not die in India (1864); Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions (1871); Life or Death
in India (1874); and Health Teaching in Towns and
Villages (1894).
Bibliography: Sarah A. Tooley, Life of Florence Nightingale, 5th ed., London, 1908; O. Shrimpton, La Guerre de Vorient. L'Armee anglaise et Miss Nightingale, Paris, 1864; Mme. Marie Monod, Les Heroines de la charite . Miss Florence Nightingale, ib. 1873; E. F. Pollard, Florence Nightingale, London, 1891; W. J. Wintle and F. Witts, Florence Nightingale and F. E. Willard, ib. 1906; M. A. Nutting and L. L. Dock, A Hist, of Nursing, chaps, iii.-vi., New York, 1907; Mrs. L. E. H. Richards, Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea, ib. 1909.
NIKEL, JOHANNES SIMON: German Roman Catholic; b. at Sohrau (105 m. s.e. of Breslau) Oct. 18, 1863. He was educated at the universities of Breslau (1881-84) and Wurzburg (1884-86; Th.D., 1886), and was ordained to the priesthood in 1886. After being a curate at Rosenberg and Konigshiitte, Upper Silesia (1886-90), he was teacher of religion and professor at the gymnasiums in Leobschutz, Neisse, and Breslau till 1897, when he was appointed associate professor of Old-Testament exegesis at the University of Breslau, and full professor there in 1900. Besides briefer papers and his contributions to the Vienna Monumenla Judaica, he has written: Die Lehre des Alten Testamentes uber die Cherubim und Seraphim (Breslau, 1890); Die heidnischen Kulturv biker des Altertums und ihre Stellung zu fremden Religionen (Leobschutz, 1891); Die soziale Gesetzgebung des deutschen Reiches im verflossenen Jahrzehnt (Miinster, 1892); Sozialpolitik und soziale Bewegungen im Altertum (Paderborn, 1892) ; Der Monotheismus Israels in der vorexilischen Zzit (Neisse, 1893); Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte (Paderborn, 1895); Herodot und die Keilschriftforschung (1896); Die Wiederher stellung des judischen Gemeinwesens nach dem babylonischen Exil (Freiburg, 1900); Die Reichsgesetze uber die Kranken-, Unfall- und Invalidenversicherung (1901); Genesis und Keilschriftforschung (1903); Zur Verstdndigung uber " Bibel und Babel " (Breslau, 1903); and Das Alte Testament und die vergleichende Religionswissenschaft (Vienna, 1906). He is the editor of Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen (Miinster, 1908 sqq.), and associate editor of Biblische Zeitfragen (1908 sqq.), to the latter contributing: Alte und neue Angriffe auf das Alte Testament (1908); Der Ur sprung des alttestamentlichen Gottesglaubens (1908); Die Glaubenswurdigkeit des Alten Testaments im Lichte der Inspirationslehre (1908); Das Alte Testament im Lichte des altorientalische Forschungen, I. Die biblische Urgeschichte; II. Moses und sein Werk (1909).
NIKOLAUS VON (DER) FLUE. See Flue.
NIKON, ni'ken: Russian patriarch; b. in a village of the present government of Nijni-Novgorod, 1605; d. Aug. 17, 1681. The Russian church had rendered powerful assistance to the rise of the grand duke of Moscow, and the metropolitan of Moscow was no less prepared to offer spiritual support; but conditions changed when the father of the youthful Czar Michael Romanov, after his deliverance from Polish captivity in 1619, was chosen patriarch. Nikon, the third of his successors, obtained for the leader of the Russian church a substantial independence. His patriarchate marks the only epoch in the history of the Russian church in which a rivalry between the spiritual and secular power
Nikon Nimbus