dmit fresh air." In this sense they are useful, but
ineffectual unless the cause be removed, and fresh air admitted.

2423. The sick-room should be quiet; no talking, no gossiping, and,
above all, no whispering,--this is absolute cruelty to the patient; he
thinks his complaint the subject, and strains his ear painfully to catch
the sound. No rustling of dresses, nor creaking shoes either; where the
carpets are taken up, the nurse should wear list shoes, or some other
noiseless material, and her dress should be of soft material that does
not rustle. Miss Nightingale denounces crinoline, and quotes Lord
Melbourne on the subject of women in the sick-room, who said, "I would
rather have men about me, when ill, than women; it requires very strong
health to put up with women." Ungrateful man! but absolute quiet is
necessary in the sick-room.

2424. Never let the patient be waked out of his first sleep by noise,
never roused by anything like a surprise. Always sit in the apartment,
so that the patient has you in view, and that it is not necessary for
him to turn in speaking to you. Never keep a patient standing; never
speak to one while moving. Never lean on the sick-bed. Above all, be
calm and decisive with the patient, and prevent all noises over-head.

2425. A careful nurse, when a patient leaves his bed, will open the
sheets wide, and throw the clothes back so as thoroughly to air the bed;
She will avoid drying or airing anything damp in the sick-room.

2426. "It is another fallacy," says Florence Nightingale, "to suppose
that night air is injurious; a great authority told me that, in London,
the air is never so good as after ten o'clock, when smoke has
diminished; but then it must be air from without, not within, and not
air vitiated by gaseous airs." "A great fallacy prevails also," she
says, in another section, "about flowers poisoning the air of the
sick-room: no one ever saw them over-crowding the sick-room; but, if
they did, they actually absorb carbonic acid and give off oxygen." Cut
flowers also decompose water, and produce oxygen gas. Lilies, and some
other very odorous plants, may perhaps give out smells unsuited to a
close room, while the atmosphere of the sick-room should always be fresh
and natural.

2427. "Patients," says Miss Nightingale, "are sometimes starved in the
midst of plenty, from want of attention to the ways which alone make it
possible for them to take food. A spoonful of beef-tea, or arrowro