The keeping patients
quiet is undoubtedly of essential importance; they should not be talked
to, nor should more persons be admitted into the room than are
absolutely necessary. Every thing that might prove offensive should
immediately be removed. Sprinkling the room sometimes with vinegar, will
contribute to keep it in a better state. The windows should be opened
occasionally for a longer or shorter time, according to the weather and
season of the year, without suffering the air to come immediately upon
the patient. Waving the chamber door backward and forward for a few
minutes, two or three times in a day, ventilates the room, without
exposing the sick person to chilness. Occasionally burning pastils in
the room, or a roll of paper, is also useful. The bed linen, and that of
the patient, should be changed every day, or in two or three days, as
circumstances may require. A strict forbearance from giving sick persons
any nourishment beyond what is prescribed by their medical attendant,
should invariably be observed. Some persons think they do well in this
respect to cheat the doctor, while in fact they cheat the patient out of
the benefit of his advice, and endanger his life under a pretence of
facilitating his recovery. In all cases it is important to wait with
patience the slow progress of recovery, rather than by injudicious means
to attempt to hasten it; otherwise the desired event will only be
retarded. What has long been undermining the stamina of health, which is
commonly the case with diseases, or what has violently shocked it by
accident, can only be removed by slow degrees. Medicines will not
operate like a charm; and even when they are most efficacious, time is
required to recover from the languid state to which persons are always
reduced, both by accident and by disease. When the period is arrived at
which sick persons may be said to be out of danger, a great deal of
patience and care will still be necessary to prevent a relapse. Much of
this will depend on the convalescent party being content for some time
with only a moderate portion of food, for we are not nourished in
proportion to what we swallow, but to what we are well able to digest.
Persons on their recovery, who eat moderately, digest their food, and
grow strong from it. Those in a weak state, who eat much, do not digest
it; instead therefore of being nourished and strengthened by it, they
insensibly wither away. The principal rules to be observed in