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 Mount Blanc ever be made habitable?
Our answer would be, it will be many thousands of years before we have
reached the bottom of Mount 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 diseases, 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 symptoms of
the disease at all, but of something quite different--of the want of
fresh air, or of light, or of warmth, or of quiet, or of cleanliness, or
of punctuality and care in the administration of diet, of each or of all
of these. And this quite as much in private as in hospital nursing.

The reparative process which Nature has instituted and which we call
disease, has been hindered by some want of knowledge or attention, in
one or in all of these things, and pain, suffering, or interruption of
the whole process sets in.

If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint,
if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed-sore, it is generally
the fault not of the disease, but of the nursing.

[Sidenote: What nursing ought to do.]

I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to
signify little more than the administration of medicines and the
application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh
air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and
administration of diet--all at the least expense of vital power to the
patient.

[Sidenote: Nursing the si