The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-12-23
The Nurse.

-tacitly, if not openly, confesses the
importance of good nursing by his anx-
iety to have faithful and experienced
nurse in attendance whenever he has a
more than usually dangerous case. The
best nurses are doubtless born to their
calling. The same as a man is born
with certain faculties and talents that
render him capable of becoming a good
statesman or able lawyer; but as with
others 50 with the nurSe-her talent re-
quires a good. deal of practical ex-
perience to giveit development. Unfor-
tunatelv many of uS-wives and mothers.
sisters and daughtcrs-are called to this
field of action who are sadly lacking,
not only in natural faculty, but in the
requisite experience also. The most we
can do is to make up our deficiency as
much rs possible by patient and I'M
firing faithfulness, and since faithfulness
is one of the prime requisites of the sue
cessful nurse, things are not, perhaps, at
quite so bad a pass as they might seem.
Still, that skill which comes from
natural fitness combined with knowl-
edge of disease, and of the proper things
to be done, cannot be quite balanced by
any amount of unskilled faithfulness and
love.
Another important qualification of the
nurse is QUtetneSS-a manner of gentle
and quiet repose. This must be tran
guilty that is the outgrowth of character
and discipline, and not simply adopted
as a garment for the occasion. There
are people who ought never to enter the
sick-room rs nurses; who are as rasping
to the nerves of a feeble and sensitive
invalid rs the hammering of Il kettle or
filing of saw. The "quiet' nurse
never wears rustling or elaborate drapery
in the sick-room, or shoes with .'clumpy"
heels or squeaky soles. She never tip
toes around your room or talks to you in
whispers; yet her step or her voice never
wearies or annoys. When she enters
upon her duties, YOU feel at once that
YOU have nothing farther to do but to lie
back on your pillows and 90 to sleep;
that the fire will be kept up, the flies
kept out, the dirty dishes carried away,
the shocking disorder of the room
amended, and the right medicines given
at the proper time; in short. that, with
out fuss or furry, your needs will be
roperly attended to without any care on
your part, than which nothing is perhaps
more restful Or tends more toward the
recovery of the ordinary invalid, espe-
cially if it be rather nervous and work
worn woman.
In disagreeable contrast to the ''quiet'
nurse, is the ''unquiet'' one, who begins
her reign by throwing herself noisily
into an arm cnair, wiping the pcrspiration
from her forehead and declaring your
choice of physicians to be a terrible mis-
take, asserting that you should have had
doctor so-and-so instead, who would
have been almost certain to bring YOU
through. Next follows a minute diagno-
sis of your case, in which your attack
and symptoms are found to tally exactly
with those of Mr.. and Mrs. So-and SO
in their last illness. Then when the
flies have been let in upon YOU in full
swarm, and your breath taken away
with huge palm-leaf in spasmodic and
Intellectual attempts to keep them off
your face, you are given a double dose
out of one of the offending doctors
bottles, without so much as sip of water
to wash it down, hidden to shut your
eyes, be perfectly quiet and 90 to sleep.
You obey the first Of these iniunctions,
but not so scrupulously that YOU fail to
observe after little time that your
drawers are being tried and your letter
box peeped into, and your best shawl
whipped out of the closet to serve as a
pillow as your keeper stretches herself
hn spfn fDr
account. Notwithstanding all this YOU
manage, by great effort of will, to escape
a betrayal of nervousness or irritablitv,
and to maintain that lamb-like deport-
ment betting your invalid state, until,
as lunch time arrives, and your broth is
fed you from a blackened basin with an
iron spoon, your tea slipped in the pro-
cess of cooling. and snuff taken over
your saucer of oatmeal, both nerves and
stomach give away, and YOU spill the
tea and decline the meal, and declare
your utter incapacity for further nour-
iShment.
Almost as trying as the above is the
oVer-methOdical nurse, who. in spite of
your efforts to the contrary. impresses
You constantly with a painful sense of
obligation, as II it were an extraordinary
act of condescenSion on her part to
be there with you at all, and it were
really very inconsiderate in YOU to re-
quirc so much waiting, and to be so silly
and nervous and ill. This manner of
nurse stands stolidly by, while YOU
nibble languidly at your toast, with an
expression which says as plainly as ex-
preston can say: :" If you only could
hurry bit now, so could get those
dishes and things out of the wavr' Or
when you have undergone the irving
ordeal of change of clothes, and a re-
moval from bed to couch, and are lust
slowly getting in readiness to proclaim
the change agreeable, she declares that
1t is high time you were getting back
again, and weighs you down with ton
more or less-of bedding, lest she
should disobey the Doctors orders. and
allow you to take cold. She shuts off
that least mite of vent in the window
for the same reason, and is greatly wor
rled because that last powder was given
three-tenths of a minute too late, and
rouSeS you out of a sound and refreshing
slumber because it is the time at which
the mustard paste was to be again put on!
One steady attendant is generally
much better especially if the patient is
very feeble and low, than a constant
change from one to another. But when
the Illness is prolonged, often the