The nurse.

Date:
[1849 or 1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nurse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    digestion, and this is the time when the patient is most apt to fall a ready prey to the trea- cherous baits of the cook. The breathing is free while the patient is at rest, but it is soon hurried by exercise, reading aloud, or speaking. Convalescents are very sen- sible of cold, though the weather be warm, but perspirations are usually copious during sleep. Convalescence is most rapid in childhood; longer and more difficult in advanced age. It is greatly impeded when excessive evacuations, or profuse blood-letting, have been resorted to during the treatment of the disease. The dili- gence of the doctor abates daily—the trials of the nurse increase as her influence begins to wane. The cook always, and too often the fondly foolish wife or mother, begin to interfere (step-mothers are not too often guilty of this fault); and the killing kindness of good-natured friends is frequently the great cause of relapses, for which the nurse, the doctor, or the patient, is unjustly blamed. In short, amendment is much more frequently and more easily accom- plished than complete recovery, especially when the patient is immersed in the toils and cares of life. The precautions to be observed in this interval of convalescence depend upon a great variety of circumstances, which can only be dis- cussed in a general manner. At the first, it is proper for the patient to persist in the use of those remedies which have rescued him from danger. Reason and expe- rience dictate the occasional employment of mild aperients at this time, carefully avoiding