8
HEALTH OF HOUSES 14
PETTY MANAGEMENT 20
NOISE 25
VARIETY 33
TAKING FOOD 36
WHAT FOOD? 39
BED AND BEDDING 45
LIGHT 47
CLEANLINESS OF ROOMS AND WALLS 49
PERSONAL CLEANLINESS 52
CHATTERING HOPES AND ADVICES 54
OBSERVATION OF THE SICK 59
CONCLUSION 71
APPENDIX 77

NOTES ON NURSING:

WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT.

[Sidenote: Disease a reparative process.]

Shall we begin by taking it as a general principle--that all disease, at
some period or other of its course, is more or less a reparative
process, not necessarily accompanied with suffering: an effort of nature
to remedy a process of poisoning or of decay, which has taken place
weeks, months, sometimes years beforehand, unnoticed, the termination of
the disease being then, while the antecedent process was going on,
determined?

If we accept this as a general principle we shall be immediately met
with anecdotes and instances to prove the contrary. Just so if we were
to take, as a principle--all the climates of the earth are meant to be
made habitable for man, by the efforts of man--the objection would be
immediately raised,--Will the top of Mont Blanc ever be made habitable?
Our answer would be, it will be many thousands of years before we have
reached the bottom of Mont Blanc in making the earth healthy. Wait till
we have reached the bottom before we discuss the top.

[Sidenote: Of the sufferings of disease, disease not always the cause.]

In watching disease, both in private houses and in public hospitals, the
thing which strikes the experienced observer most forcibly is this, that
the symptoms or the sufferings generally considered to be inevitable and
incident to the disease are very often not sympto