requires diluents for quite other purposes than quenching the thirst; he
wants a great deal of some drink, not only of tea, and the doctor will
order what he is to have, barley water or lemonade, or soda water and
milk, as the case may be.

Lehmann, quoted by Dr. Christison, says that, among the well and active
"the infusion of 1 oz. of roasted coffee daily will diminish the waste"
going on in the body "by one-fourth," and Dr. Christison adds that tea
has the same property. Now this is actual experiment. Lehmann weighs the
man and finds the fact from his weight. It is not deduced from any
"analysis" of food. All experience among the sick shows the same
thing.[25]

[Sidenote: Cocoa.]

Cocoa is often recommended to the sick in lieu of tea or coffee. But
independently of the fact that English sick very generally dislike
cocoa, it has quite a different effect from tea or coffee. It is an oily
starchy nut having no restorative power at all, but simply increasing
fat. It is pure mockery of the sick, therefore, to call it a substitute
for tea. For any renovating stimulus it has, you might just as well
offer them chesnuts instead of tea.

[Sidenote: Bulk.]

An almost universal error among nurses is in the bulk of the food and
especially the drinks they offer to their patients. Suppose a patient
ordered 4 oz. brandy during the day, how is he to take this if you make
it into four pints with diluting it? The same with tea and beef tea,
with arrowroot, milk, &c. You have not increased the nourishment, you
have not increased the renovating power of these articles, by increasing
their bulk,--you have very likely diminished both by giving the
patient's digestion more to do, and most likely of all, the patient will
leave half of what he has been ordered to take, because he cannot
swallow the bulk with which you have been pleased to invest it. It
requires very nice observation and care (and meets with hardly any) to
determine what will not be too thick or strong for the patient to take,
while giving him no more than the bulk which he is able to swallow.

VIII. BED AND BEDDING.

[Sidenote: Feverishness a symptom of bedding.]

A few words upon bedsteads and bedding; and principally as regards
patients who are entirely, or almost entirely, confined to bed.

Feverishness is generally supposed to be a symptom of fever--in nine
cases out of ten it is a symptom of bedding.[26] The patient has had
re-introduced into the bod