re this right proportion for them--to shew them
what the rest of the world is doing. How can they find it out otherwise?
You will find them far more open to conviction than children in this.
And you will find that their unreasonable intensity of suffering from
unkindness, from want of sympathy, &c., will disappear with their
freshened interest in the big world's events. But then you must be able
to give them real interests, not gossip.

[Sidenote: Two new classes of patients peculiar to this generation.]

NOTE.--There are two classes of patients which are unfortunately
becoming more common every day, especially among women of the richer
orders, to whom all these remarks are pre-eminently inapplicable. 1.
Those who make health an excuse for doing nothing, and at the same
time allege that the being able to do nothing is their only grief.
2. Those who have brought upon themselves ill-health by over pursuit
of amusement, which they and their friends have most unhappily
called intellectual activity. I scarcely know a greater injury that
can be inflicted than the advice too often given to the first class
"to vegetate"--or than the admiration too often bestowed on the
latter class for "pluck."

XIII. OBSERVATION OF THE SICK.

[Sidenote: What is the use of the question, Is he better?]

There is no more silly or universal question scarcely asked than this,
"Is he better?" Ask it of the medical attendant, if you please. But of
whom else, if you wish for a real answer to your question, would you ask
it? Certainly not of the casual visitor; certainly not of the nurse,
while the nurse's observation is so little exercised as it is now. What
you want are facts, not opinions--for who can have any opinion of any
value as to whether the patient is better or worse, excepting the
constant medical attendant, or the really observing nurse?

The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses is to
teach them what to observe--how to observe--what symptoms indicate
improvement--what the reverse--which are of importance--which are of
none--which are the evidence of neglect--and of what kind of neglect.

All this is what ought to make part, and an essential part, of the
training of every nurse. At present how few there are, either
professional or unprofessional, who really know at all whether any sick
person they may be with is better or worse.

The vagueness and looseness o