The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21
CONFESSIONS OF
 A TRAINED NURSE
Mistakes Are Made In Every
 Art and Trade
A NERVE BACKING ERROR
What Happens When Hospital Nurse Gives Dose of Deadly Poison to the Wrong
 Patient.
From the Boston Post.

From the Boston Post.
 In every science and every art, in every bushes and every trade, mistakes are made; they are part of all men. But physicians practice their science and their art on life. With that material, mistake Is irreparable. You. who are now student, keen over your work and one of the best men of your year at the hospital. what will you do when that disaster happens? This fear of doing harm. which Is called the strain of practice, does not pass with the passing of youth; it is acknowledge by a famous surgeon in a letter written when he was 5s.
 And 1t is because mistakes are a part of all men," that dare confess the one that I made during my hospital course. It nearly put an end to my career and Is carved in intaglio on my memory so deeply that it's impression can never be fentirely effaced. have kept it to myself for years and the telling of 1t is not easy even now. But l unfurl the fiery scroll in the hope that it may serve as a danger signal, a warning against blind self-con- fidence. There may be others than that need the. admonition. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" For was very sure of myself. And then came my abasement, and in that dark hour learned in all humility the lesson of tolerance for the faults~of others.
 Task That Tries the Nerves.
 tx fay fbar year when I was promoted to the posi- ton of senior nurse in the mems medical ward. a post of great responsibility, re- quiring a clear brain as well as a steady hand, for the senior has charge of the medication for the whole ward, and as many of the drugs are put up in solu- tions of varying strength, each dose must be mathematioally calculated, according to the number of grains contained in an ounce.
 It is to the credit of my hospital that no nurse is allowed to measure out the medicines until she has been at least six months in the schoo and has suc- cessfully passed the difficult examina- tion in materia medica. I was so well equipped for my new duties that l felt no misgivings about them. prided myself on my thoroughness. even | fate predicted for me by a grouchy old man, who, objecting to the care with which I made his bed. grumbled, "Ah, you're too particuar. You'll die an old maidl You'll die an old maidl'
 The attending physician was a man of progressive ideas. Experiments are the pabulum of all science, and he made several in therapeutics which aroused the wonder and admiration |, 4ob to labors while increasing them.
 It was a nitroglycerine test that have cause for remembering with painful exactness. The attending phy sician declared his intention of push ing this drug in the treatment of two men, both suffering from Bright's dis- ease, until the tension which marked the pulses of both, with the accom- panying headaches, was entirely knocked out. Accordingly. he started them simultaneously on the average dose, one one-hundreth of grain every two hours and gradually but steadily increasing the dose At the end of week each was getting a grain an hour.
 Every little detail is distinct in my mind after the lapse of years. It seems as though 1t were only yesterday that I heard the druggist get off his joke, when, protestingly, because of it's ex plosive quality he yielded to my re- quest for 10 per cent solution of the drug, because I simply had not the time to count hundred tablets apiece so often. He said, as he handed me an ounce bottle of the stuff: Tt would take brave man to kick those patients out of the building"
 The Mlshap.
 It was unheard of for nitro-gylcerine to be given in such tremendous quantities. And yet day by day the dose was in l creased as the tension persisted. At the end of another week 1t had reached two | and a half grains every 30 minutes. : Twice a day I had to descend to the ; drug room to have my bottle replenished. , The druggist would not allow me more ! than an ounce at time and would trus. f that to no other hand but mine, though i it is a probs work to run errands. But ! I needed no caution from him. 1 was ! quite alive to my weight of responsibil- lty. l handled the bottle with respect and took care that my measurement of each dose should be accurate to a minim | I thought l had safeguarded against a possibility of mistaken, and then-1T hap pened.
 One day the head nurse had a matinee