that
led them towards this conclusion and away from that, ought never to be
with the sick.

[Sidenote: Irresolution most painful to them.]

Irresolution is what all patients most dread. Rather than meet this in
others, they will collect all their data, and make up their minds for
themselves. A change of mind in others, whether it is regarding an
operation, or re-writing a letter, always injures the patient more than
the being called upon to make up his mind to the most dreaded or
difficult decision. Farther than this, in very many cases, the
imagination in disease is far more active and vivid than it is in
health. If you propose to the patient change of air to one place one
hour, and to another the next, he has, in each case, immediately
constituted himself in imagination the tenant of the place, gone over
the whole premises in idea, and you have tired him as much by displacing
his imagination, as if you had actually carried him over both places.

Above all, leave the sick room quickly and come into it quickly, not
suddenly, not with a rush. But don't let the patient be wearily waiting
for when you will be out of the room or when you will be in it.
Conciseness and decision in your movements, as well as your words, are
necessary in the sick room, as necessary as absence of hurry and bustle.
To possess yourself entirely will ensure you from either failing--either
loitering or hurrying.

[Sidenote: What a patient must not have to see to.]

If a patient has to see, not only to his own but also to his nurse's
punctuality, or perseverance, or readiness, or calmness, to any or all
of these things, he is far better without that nurse than with her--
however valuable and handy her services may otherwise be to him, and
however incapable he may be of rendering them to himself.

[Sidenote: Reading aloud.]

With regard to reading aloud in the sick room, my experience is, that
when the sick are too ill to read to themselves, they can seldom bear to
be read to. Children, eye-patients, and uneducated persons are
exceptions, or where there is any mechanical difficulty in reading.
People who like to be read to, have generally not much the matter with
them; while in fevers, or where there is much irritability of brain, the
effort of listening to reading aloud has often brought on delirium. I
speak with great diffidence; because there is an almost universal
impression that it is _sparing_ the sick to read aloud to them. But t