Dear Florence, Dear Elizabeth. Le straordinarie vite parallele di Florence Nightingale ed Elizabeth Blackwell

Introduction The double centennial - in 2010 – of Florence Nightingale’s and Elizabeth Blackwell’s death is an opportunity to reconstruct the relationship between the founder of modern Nursing and the first woman physician of modern times. Main issues The extraordinary scientific and moral histories of these two women deserve to be remembered and reconsidered not only in the Anglo-Saxon world, where both of them continue to enjoy exceptional popularity and favour, but also in Italy and in other countries where the effects of the two "revolutions" of Florence and Elizabeth were more belated perhaps, but certainly not less notable and lasting. The analysis of some writings by Nightingale and Blackwell, along with other biographical and historical sources, shows that their long and influential lives not only flowed parallel but crossed several times, full of ideal harmony, of great mutual esteem, but also of many disagreements and differences in sensibility. It was the increasing divergence of views on what could and should be the specific contribution of women to the progress of medicine and, in general, of healthcare to produce a separation between the two friends in the last part of their lives. The gradual parting of Nightingale and Blackwell has been overcome by subsequent history which has shown that their visions and strategies were in fact compatible and, finally, absolutely complementary. Conclusions The review of the "parallel lives" of Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Blackwell shows not only that women’s contribution to the development of modern health care has been growing and decisive, but also that, from its very outset, it was not - and will probably continue not to be - neither uniform nor stereotyped, but multifaceted and not necessarily convergent.