Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-02-18
Florence Nightingale Noise in the Sick
Chamber,

Florence Nightingale Noise in the Sick
Chamber.
Florence Nightingale has just published
book entitled "Notes ON Nursing" We ex-
tract the following from the chapter on noise
"Never to allow patient to be walked, in
tentionally or accidentally, is a sine qua non of
all good nursing. If he is reused out OF his
first sleep, he is almost certain to have no more
sleep. 1t is a curious but quite Ineligible
fact, that if a patient is walked after few
hours instead Of few minutes sleep, he is
much more likely to sleep again. Because
pain, like irritability Of brain, perpetuates and
intensties itself. If you have gained respite
OF either in sleep, you have gained more than
the mere respite. Both the probability of re-
currence and OF the same intensity will be di
minished whereas both will be terribly in
creased by want Of sleep. This is the reason
why sleep is so all-important. This is the rea-
son why patient walked in the early part of
his sleep loses not only his sleep, but lis power
to sleep. A healthy person who allows him
self to sleep during the day loses his sleep at
night. But it is exactly the reverse with the
sick generay-the more they sleep the better
they will be able to sleep.
81 have often been surprised at the thought
lessness (resulting in cruelty, quite uninten.
tial, OF friends or of doctors, who will hold
a long conversation just in the room or pas
sage adjoining to the room OF the patient, who
is either every moment expecting them to
come in, or who has just seen them, and
knows they are talking about him. If he is
an amable patient, he will try to occupy his
attention elsewhere and not to listen, and this
makes matters worSe-for the strain upon his
attention and the effort he makes are so great
that it is well if he is not worse for hours atler.
If it is whispered conversation in the same
room, then it is absolutely cruel, for it is i'm
possible that the patients attention should not
be Involuntary strained to hear. Walking
on tip-toe, doing anything in the room very
slowly, are injurious, for exactly the same
reasons. A firm, light, quick step, a steady,
quick hand, are the desiderata; not the
slow, lingering, shutting foot-the timid I'M
certain touch. Slowness is not gentle
ness, though il is often mistaken as such
quickness, lightness and gentleness are quite
compatible. Again, if friends and doctors did
but watch, as nurses can and should watch,
the features sharpening, the eyes growing al
most wild, of fever patients who are listening
for the entrance from the corridor of the per-
sons whose voices they are hearing there,
these would never run the risk again Of Great
ing such expectation or irritation of mind
Such unnecessary noise has undoubtedly in
duced or aggravated delirium in many cases.
| have known such, in one case death ensued
1t is but fair to say that this death was attrib-
uted to fright. 1t was the result of a long
whispered conversation, within sight of the
patient, about an impending operation, but any
one who had known the more than stoicism,
the cheerful GOODNESS, with which the certain
ty of an operation will be accepted by any pa
tent, capable of bearing an operation at all,
if it is properly communicated to him, will
hesitate to believe that it was mere fear, which
produced as we averred, the fatal result in
this instance. 1t was rather the uncertainty,
the strained expectation as to what was to be
decided upon.
81 need hardly say that the other common
causes, namely, for doctor or friend to leave
the patient and communicate his opinion of
the result Of his visit to the friends Just outside
the patients door, or in the adjoining room,
after the VISIT but within hearing or knowledge
of the patient, is, if possible worst of all.
at IL, think alarming, peculiarly at the
time when the female ink bottles are perpetually
impressing upon us-woman's particular worth
and general Missionaries to see that the dress
of women is daily more and more uniting
them for any mission or usefulness at all. 1t
is equally untitled for all poetic and all domes-
tic purposes. A man is now more handy
and tar less Objectionable being in a sick-room
than woman Compelled by her dress, every
woman now either shuflles or waddles on
ly man can cross the floor of the Sick-room
without shaking it. What is become of wo-
mans light step-that firm, light, quick step
we have been asking for q