Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-21
COOKING FOR THE SICK

There was a knock on the door of the re-
cepton room of a physician who rents his
office in a fashionable house and an invita-
ton to come in" 1t was out of office
hours, but a reporter was waiting for a
talk with the doctor \ well-dressed cheer
ful-1ooking woman came in, followed by a
boy with covered basket filled with pat
ent stoppered bottles. The bottles We're
filled with various colored fluids, some OF
them transparent and some of them not.
The doctor took them 10 the light and eX-
amined each critically.
Seldom have to find any fault with your
work Mrs. - he said, but I'm afraid
to send out the barley water you brought
me yesterday. Let the boy take it back |
am afraid you did not use the pure pearl bar
ley. Instructions must be followed strictly
you know, or we shall be compelled to part
Five more bottles of raw beef extract to-
morrow, please"
When the woman had gone the doctor
said: That woman and many others like
her, makes comfortable living with COM
parative ease. You understand, of course
that great many people come from out
side points to consult specialists of one
kind or another in my profession For in
stance, take my own case a specialist in
stomach diseases, of which there are forty
or more, each requiring radically different
treatment. Nervous prostration almost in
VarIably results from some form of stom-
ach trouble, and we have to remove the
cause before we can restore the nerves
A patient comes to me and | see at a
glance that il would be out of the question
for him to take his meals at a hotel table
In fact, L must cut off solids altogether and
feed linn with medically prepared juices OF
meat and such things.
Physicians know the women who can
prepare the foods they want and send for
them just as they do for trained nurses
whom lney regard as most advisable for
any particular patient The diet woman
gets her instructions. She must buy only
the best beef mutton for juice from the
meat. She must only so much salt
to the grain, much of the yolk of an
egg, and must take such precautions as arc
specified by the physician. She must not
make barley water from ordinary barley
but from the best pearl barley. Everythin..
must be cooked just so long and strained
The patients supply of food is ample in its
variety, but il must be prepared in a man.
ner to suit his particular case.
"The prepared food is brought in quart
bottles, with patent shoppers. The physi-
clan examines them very carefully before
they are sent to the patient, and bottles
sent back are. not paid for. A woman WHO
persists in disobeying orders is dropped
But there are number of women who are
only too ready 10 prepare the food precisely
as the physician insists on having it. ana
these are women who earn good money.
THE patient? Oh, well, specialist can
not follow a man around his hotel to
that he does not diSobey orders. If one %
my patients INDUCES in forbidden food he
cannot hide it from me. If a man conva-
descent from rheumatism drinks beer, or a
man suffering from mental delusions takes
opiates or treads in paths that are fcr-
hidden there is use trying to hide it
better save their money and go their
course.