The Lambertville press. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1858-1???, 1860-03-14
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Care of the Sick.

It is an ever recurring wonder to
see educated people, who call them
selves nurses, acting thus. They vary
their own objects, their own employ
ments, many times day and while
nursing % some bed-ridden sufferer
they let him lie there staring at dead
wall, without any change of object
to enable him to vary his thoughts
and it never even occurred to them at
least to move his bed, SO that he can
look out Of the window. No, the
bed is to be always left in the darkest,
dullest, remotest part Of the room.
think it q very common error
among the well to think that " with a
little more self-contrOl'' the sick might,
if they choose, dismiss painful tho'ts :"
which aggravate their disease" &c.
Believe me, almost any sick person
who behaves decently well, exercises
more self control every day than you
will ever know till you are sick your
SELF Almost every step that crosses
his room is painful to him; almost
every thought that crosses his brain
is painful to him; and if he can speak
without being savage, and look with
out being unpleasant, he is exercising
self-control.
Suppose you have been up all night,
and instead of being allowed to have
your cup of tea, you were to be told
that you ought to exercise self-con-
troll" what should you say? Now,
the nerves of the sick are always in
the state that yours are in after you
have been up all night.
Never to allow patient to be walked
Intentionally or accidently, in SINE
qua non of all good nursing. If he is
aroused out Of his first sleep, he is
almost certain to have no more sleep
1t is curious but quite intelligent
fact, that if patient is walked after
a few hours instead of few minutes
sleep, he is much more likely to sleep
again. Because pain, like irrit ability
of brain, perpetuates and intensifies
itself. If you have gained respite
of either in sleep you have gained more
than the mere respite. Both the pro-
liability Of recurrence and of the same
intensity will be diminished whereas
both will be terribly increased by want
of sleep. This is the reason why sleep
is so all important. This is the reason
why patient walked in the early part
of his sleep looses not only his sleep,
but his power to sleep. A healthy
person who allows himself to sleep
during the day will lose his sleep at
night. But it is exactly the reverse
with the sick generally the more
they sleep, the better they will be
able to sleep.
/ have often been surprised at the
thoughtlessness (resulting in crueltv
quite unintentional,) of friends or Of
doctors, who will holed a long CONVEX
sation just in the room or passage ad-
joining 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 Ifhe is ar amiable patient,
he will try to occupy his attention
elsewhere and not to iisten-and this
makes matters worse-for the strain
upon his attention and effort he makes
are so great that it is we'll if he is not
worse for hours after. IF it is whis-
pered conversation in the same room,
then it is absolutely cruel; for it is
impossible that the patients attention
should not be involuntarily 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, steady,
quick hand are the desiderata not the
slow, lingering, shutting foot, the timid
uncertain touch. Slowness is not gen
tleness, though it is often mistaken for
such; quickness, lightness and gentle
ness are quite compatible. Again, if
friends and doctors did but watch, as
nurses can and should watch, the
features sharpening, the eyes growing
aim nst wild, of fever patients who are
listening for the entrance from the
corridor of the persons whose voices
they are hearing there, these would
never run the risk again of creating
such expectations of irritation of mind
Such unnecessary noise has undoubtedly
! induced or aggravated delirium in
many cases. | have known such-in
one case death ensued.
1t is but fair to say that this death
was attributed to fright. 1t was the
result of long whispered conversation,
within sight of the patient, about an
impending operation but, any one
who has known the more than stoicims,
the cheerful GOODNESS with which the
certainty of any operation will be ac-
cepted by any patient, capable o.
bearing an operation at all, if it il
properly communicated to him, vii
hesitate to believe that it was mere
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