The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-03-05
Home Nursing
Politics And chess-Rinders
Ir1ERRY MacFadden was a tail

lHTtERRY MacFadden was a tall
gangling youth, well over six
feet, and entirely too long for his
bed. He was very i'll and circumstances
were such that by the time it was real
lied how sick Terry was that he was
too ill to be moved. So the hospital
came to Terry, instead Of Terry 60
ing to the hospital. +.
There was a nurse, of course, and
after a day or so, when she had con-
WINGED Terry's mother, his grandmother
and the anxious aunts and cousins, who
flocked to the house, that she was quite
human and not in the least bent upon
antagonizing the servants or using all
the clean linen or demoralizing the
| household generally, the MacFadden
home became almost happy.
At first it. had been terrible, Terry's
parents were frightened because the doc
tor was SO non-committal.
The cook seemed to recall every
death she had ever heard of as having
occurred from pneumonia. Friends and
neighbors said well meaning but ill
advised things such as: Poor boy !
| He's so thin He grew too fast.
suppose, and he has no resistance. But
the crisis will be the worst. 1t doesn't
happen for nine or ten days. If they
get over the crisis when they have
pneumonia, thin people like Terry gen
orally have a chance to pull thrOugh-if
their hearts don't get weak" .
The nurse explained good deal to
tie Terry's mother and father, but she
shut the rest of the family gently, but
firmly, into the hall.
Terry, struggling for breath against
the agonizing pain in his chest, soon
realized that the nurse was doing little
things all the time to make him COM
Portable, the fight against pain easier
for him. Lying weakly on his pillows,
he was grateful and filled with con-
fidence in the nurse and the doctor. And
with his reinsurance came ebbing back
the strength to win back to health.
But it was long fight. In the
anxious hours before the crisis, there
were poultices to be constantly applied
to the thin pain-racked chest-poultices
that Terry in his semi-delirium tore off
and threw upon the floor, until the
nurse got his mother to make chest
binder. This kept the poultices prop
erly adjusted and Terry derived twice
the benefit from them because the heat
was consistent instead of being spas
modic, and it was when he threw the
pouItices off. and suffered them to be
replaced for but a few minutes at a
time
why do you want scissors? Won't
straight strip of cotton do" inquired
the boys mother when the nurse asked
her to bring the scissors, a strip of stout
factory cotton and some safety pins.
"A shaped chest-binder is much more
comfortable" explained the nurse. You
take a straight piece of cotton long
enough to go. around the body and wide
enough to extend from the neck to the
waist. Cut it out around the neck and
arms as~you would if you were making
shirt or night gown. 1t is very sim
pie. Pin it up the front, over the poul-
tice, fasten the shoulder straps with
tiny safety pins, not too tightly, just
comfortably. The patient gets the en-
tire benefit from the pouitiees, because
they remain in place and the applied
heat is consistent instead of constantly
being interfered WITH