AMATEUR NURSES.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2204, 19 March 1881, Page 3

AMATEUR NURSES.

[From the " Queen.”] With the increasing cold comes, only too often, an increasing illness, not always of an alarming kind, but of the sort that requires careful looking after to prevent more or less serious consequences. Colds, coughs, and bronchitis, if taken in time, need not be serious ailments, but often entail a few days’ imprisonment. Now, in summer, confinement to one’s room is sure to be irksome, but need not be stuffy. But in winter the latter cause of suffering is not so easily avoided. In warm, sunny weather an open window can usually be managed somehow without endangering the patient; but in the oeld, wet, foggy winter days and nights who does not know the wretchedness of the close, hot room, which, with all one’s care, will smell of beef tea and medicine in a ■way that is trying enough to healthy outsiders, but is simple misery to the patient, especially if ho be a man or boy accustomed to unlimited fresh air and exercise. lam not talking of really dangerous and contagious diseases, or in these cases skilled nurses are generally called in, who, thanks to thorough training, fully understand the value of fresh air and water. Tho nursing I refer to is essentially amateur nursing—in fact, what the members of the sufferer’s family could and should be perfectly competent to undertake. Only, unluckily, it is just in these oases that one most often finds what, for want of a better name, I will call stuffy nursing. Theoretically, everyone readily acknowledges the necessity of fresh air, tidiness, carefulness, and strict cleanliness in a sick room. Practically, in far too many cases, one or other, and sometimes all, these necessities aro ignored altogether, or only very slightly insisted on. Until one has oneself been ill, one seldom realises what absolute misery apparent trifles become to a sick person ; and this is one reason why very young people are seldom good nurses. “ Put yourself in his place ” is a capital motto for a nurse, whether amateur or professional, and the one who can do it .most thoroughly is usually the most successful.

Sick folk, a* a rule, suffer especially from want of air and want of room. Few people hare bouses on such a scale as to allow of an extra room fitted up to serve as a kind of hospital, and yet what a b6on in time of sickness is an airy room, with only necessary furniture, but with an ante-room, where food, medicine, &c., can be kept out of sight and smell. Generally sick folk have to be nursed in whatever room they fall ill in, and nurses have to make the best of the existing state of affairs. By dint of care, most rooms con bo kept fairly airy, especially in towns ; for even if a window may not bo opened in the sick room, yet the door may, and with an open window in the adjoining room, or on the next landing, the atmosphere can be kept moderately fresh. Another valuable assistant is Oondy’s fluid, or any other similar inodorous disinfectant. In infectious disease saucers of freshly roasted and ground coffee are most efficacious as disinfectants. In cases of prolonged illness the room may be easily and safely freshened and purified by sprinkling the floor lightly with properly diluted Oondy ; only bear in mind, unless carefully diluted, Oondy’s fluid stains everything it touches with an all but indelible stain. But no amount of disinfectants will keep a sick room wholesome without the most extreme cleanliness. Never keep any vessel the patient has once used, in the room. Let it be carried away and washed at once. Never leave food or drink standing in the sick room, and never fill up a half-empty cup or glass, but either rinse it out or get a fresh one. A table on the landing or in an adjoining room, where one can keep basin, water, and a cloth for washing cups, &0., can nearly always be managed ; and even if one has to carry everything up and down stairs, the comfort to the patient of systematic, dainty cleanliness more than repays the trouble. Some amateur nurses (aye, and professional ones too) seem to think it enough to place anything used outside the sick-room door, trusting to a chance maid seeing it and carrying it off. But this proceeding often worries the patient most exceedingly. If the patient be a woman, she lies there and fidgets over the chance of that stray cup being whisked over by a passing skirt, with an ominous clatter and smash j and though probably this does not happen, the expectation of it keeps her on tenter hooks, and prevents needful rest. Again, it your patient is a man, he usually fancies he can smell the remains of the beef tee, or broth, or feel the steam from the half-empty hotwater can, oven through the closed door. Now, doubtless, both feminine and masculine imagination run riot in these cases, and half the trouble is due to weakened nerves ; but when one is ill, the nerves are always the first to suffer, and even in health hardly ever get fair play in these hurrying, bustling days. In slight illnesses, where two or three days’ confinement are all that will be needed, keep the room as much as possible in its usual state. I have heard ladies who prided themselves on their nursing powers, say that in any case everything, not actually indispensable, should be removed. Personally this seems to me only unnecessary bother ; avoid as much as possible making a circumstance of illness. Patients are generally quite ready enough to despond, and all this systematic making a sick room of their bedroom is very apt to leave an unpleasant impression on the patient that he or she is, in schoolboy phrase, “ in for it, and ' no mistake !” Of course, I don’t moan that unnecessary chairs, and pretty fragile tables, or inconvenient though artistic knicknacks should be left about to bo tumbled over and damaged, and generally to play the part of mantraps to unwary visitors. Have a place 1 for everything, and keep everything in it. Fold any non-washing clothes the patient i may have put off when going to bed, and, after a thorough brushing and airing, put them awaw. Send any washing things at once

to the laundry, and put away any walking boots and shoes, for they, especially if they are gentlemen’s, always will smell of blacking in a warm room. Clothes should always be put away properly, not just brushed and hung up out of the way. I remember once, when nursing my husband, ill of low fever, I noticed something was worrying him each time he woke. I looked about, but for some time could not discover the cause. The room was quite tidy and fresh enough ; what could it be ? At last I found it was a pet coat, which he happened to have been wearing when ordered to bed by the doctor. The servant had duly brushed it ; but, finding his master asleep, had not liked to risk waking him by opening the drawer, and so had hung it up on a hook in a cupboard, where it had remained unnoticed till my husband caught sight of it through the half-opened door. I took it down, folded it up, and put it in the drawer, and was rewarded by seeing him turn over and go quietly to sleep. He told me afterwards that had been as good as a composing draught to him, for that coat hanging out of shape on the hook had been a kind of nightmare to him in his weakness. It is wonderful what small things fret a sick person—often so tiny that, though the worry is very real, they are ashamed to confess it.

In feeding your patient always remember that, however unfaetidious they may be when well, a very little thing will “turn them” when ill. Besides that, they have whims, and can’t fancy a thing, however nine, because it is in a plate or oup they don’t like. Never offer the same thing twice, and don’t leave the cup of beef tea or the milk they have not oared to finish by the bed side, “in case they fancy it later on.” It they have to be left, it is right enough to leave them any little necessary at hand ; but if you are nursing, and as suoh always in the room, it is your business to see they have the things fresh, and to hand it to them, and not let them risk a chill by throwing off the bedclothes in stretching after the required article, or else spill some of its contents because the poor arm was too weak and shaky to convey the drink they wanted to their mouths steadily. Nothing frets children when ill more than their food. Grown-up invalids are often set against their food by too much being given, &0., but the tiny patient, not having sense, is tantalised by seeing more than he may be allowed to take. It is a grievance to them if, when feverish they beg for “ a big drink, please,” they are handed a half-full tumbler, or else a full one, with the request, “Don’t drink all that, pet,” while they take gaily the little glass full, because “ it’s my very own,” though very likely it holds a third less than the despised halftumbler.

A small fire is often a great comfort to a sick room, but mind the coals ! Where strict quiet ia necessary, it answers to make up little parcels of coals wrapped in newspaper, and so to put them on by the hand. The miniature tongs one sees in drawing rooms are always nice, for with them you can put on single pieces of coal in the very spot you wish them to lie, whereas the ordinary tongs are too unwieldy to do it satisfactorily, and one’s fingers, though undoubtedly convenient, are not improved by being used for the purpose. Doubtless, to many my suggestions may seem almost insulting from commonplace, and I may be told, “ Anyone with moderate common sense knows all you tell ns.” Quite true ; but a rather varied experience, both as nurse and patient, leads me to think common sense may be “ common " in the way of being sense applied to everything, but it most decidedly is not “ common ” in the sense of being common to everybody. One more hint, and I have done. When nursing think no change in your patient's manner or appearance too trifling to tell the doctor of it. Unimportant as you may deem it, it may be the very symptom he is watching for. Tell the doctor everything fully and truly, and, above all, obey him implicitly. Never act against his orders, or tamper with them in any way. If you think any change in treatment judicious, ask bis opinion first before trying it, but do not do things unknown to him. In this watchfulness and strict obedience lie the chief difference between professional and amateur nursing, and also too often the great advantage gained by employing the farmer over the latter. La Vibllb.