ectly in the draught between the open door and
window. Neither, of course, should a patient, while being washed, or in
any way exposed, remain in the draught of an open window or door.

[5]
[Sidenote: Don't make your sick room into a sewer.]

But never, never should the possession of this indispensable lid confirm
you in the abominable practice of letting the chamber utensil remain in
a patient's room unemptied, except once in the 24 hours, i.e., when the
bed is made. Yes, impossible as it may appear, I have known the best and
most attentive nurses guilty of this; aye, and have known, too, a
patient afflicted with severe diarrhoea for ten days, and the nurse (a
very good one) not know of it, because the chamber utensil (one with a
lid) was emptied only once in 24 hours, and that by the housemaid who
came in and made the patient's bed every evening. As well might you have
a sewer under the room, or think that in a water-closet the plug need be
pulled up but once a day. Also take care that your _lid_, as well as
your utensil, be always thoroughly rinsed.

If a nurse declines to do these kinds of things for her patient,
"because it is not her business," I should say that nursing was not her
calling. I have seen surgical "sisters," women whose hands were worth to
them two or three guineas a-week, down upon their knees scouring a room
or hut, because they thought it otherwise not fit for their patients to
go into. I am far from wishing nurses to scour. It is a waste of power.
But I do say that these women had the true nurse-calling--the good of
their sick first, and second only the consideration what it was their
"place" to do--and that women who wait for the housemaid to do this, or
for the charwoman to do that, when their patients are suffering, have
not the _making_ of a nurse in them.

II. HEALTH OF HOUSES.[1]

[Sidenote: Health of houses. Five points essential.]

There are five essential points in securing the health of houses:--

1. Pure air.
2. Pure water.
3. Efficient drainage.
4. Cleanliness.
5. Light.

Without these, no house can be healthy. And it will be unhealthy just in
proportion as they are deficient.

[Sidenote: Pure air.]

1. To have pure air, your house be so constructed as that the outer
atmosphere shall find its way with ease to every corner of it. House
architects hardly ever consider this. The object in building a house is
to obtain the largest interest for the money, not to sa