The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1897-06-17
THE TRAINED NURSE.
A Protest Agaxxst Her superhuman Self
Pcise In the Sickroom.

A medical writer who asserts that
in 20 years there will be no physi-
clans, but only surgeons and nurses,
maintains that the only advance
that has been made in the practice
of medicine in this century is the
institution of the trained nurse.
This is hard on the general practi-
TONERS, especially when it is consid-
cred that they did not voluntarily,
but quite reluctantly, open the sick
room to the trained nurse, who is
the discovery or invention of benev-
client women with a mania for col
lecting funds and a passion for pa
tronizing semipublic schools.
Even as to the trained nurse there
are two points of view. In cases of
severe and critical sickness and in
households where there is no order
Illness and no rational self restraint,
the awful presence of this young
woman is obviously necessary if the
patient is to have a chance for his
life. In other cases the patient, if a
man, has a fierce desire to throw
pillows or slippers at her head, to
swear shockingly or do something
to disturb her disciplined and unnat-
ural equanimity. Her fixed, eternal
smile of simulated sweetness and
patience is maddening. She has a
quiet but pitiless air of absolute
wisdom and superhuman self poise.
The precision with which her hair
is brushed under her aggressively
neat cap, her noiseless, ghostlike
glide, her businesslike and auto
matte administration of drops and
powders without the human posi-
bility Of a fatal mistake, and, above
all, her set and practiced look of &C.
lestial goodness, are enough to irri-
tate the most patient of sick men.
The man is restrained by her pain
fully ladylike manners from swear
ing and throwing things, and the
restraint is bad for his nerves.
She mars all the pleasures of sick
ness. The liberty to swear without
being reproached which is accorded
to a man by the members of his own
family, the privilege of whining
until the wife or sister or other re.
lated woman is moved to display
of sympathy, the liberty to plead
for delay when the bitter dose is
due, to work up a senseless griev-
ance, distress everybody about the
premises, find fault with the cook
ing and conduct himself generally
like a spoiled child, these are the
usual compengations of the sick
man. All are impracticable and bar
red when a positive, unsympathetic
trained nurse is in charge, and the
women of the household gladly sur
render all responsibility into her
hands and can be heard chatting
cheerfully with callers down stairs,
The sick man is disappointed too.
AT the first grateful suggestion of
the trained nurse he has visions of
a lovely young creature, whose feel
ings will be touched by his appear
ance of suffering, who will smooth
his pillow with a soft and tender
hand, which she will subsequently
place on his manly, fevered brow,
and that sort of sentimental thing.
Ablebodied men are more senti-
mental than schoolgirls, even q bank
president after business hours.
When the expectant patient finds
the self contained young woman as
unsympathetic, as exact and meth
odical as machine, as dead to his
personality as if he were a hatrack
or a craven image, the reaction
makes him bitter and savage.
Considering everything, to the
average man who, though sick, is
not in a critical state, the trained
nurse is quite as oppressive and IN
satisfying as the red nosed, fat, old
woman who preceded her and
cheered him with accounts of the
death of other persons who had
been afflicted just as he is.-St.
Louis GlObe-Democrat.