Practical hints on district nursing / by Amy Hughes.

  • Hughes, Amy.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical hints on district nursing / by Amy Hughes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/120 (page 42)
    Margaret Street, W., will prove most instructive, as there can be seen every modern improvement in drains, systems of ventilation, etc., and many of the defective methods also, the contrast con- stituting a valuable object lesson. These are all most courteously explained to any one wishing to understand the subject. When a nurse understands the reason why, she will not be content to leave her patient in a room where a gaily-decorated board hermeti- cally seals the entrance to the chimney. The window, duly open during the day, is almost certain to be closed at night, and the patient sleeps, or does not sleep, in an atmosphere laden with carbonic acid gas and organic matter. The removal of the board may not be enough; knowledge of ventilation laws will suggest a lighted lamp being placed in the fireplace, which, establishing a current, ventilates the room and prevents the down-draught, so often the excuse for blocking up a chimney. This is only one of many instances where increased knowledge is useful. A district nurse should be able to tell if the sanitary arrangements of a house are in order; whether one cistern is used to supply drinking water and for flushing purposes, if the flush of water in a closet is sufficient, if rain pipes over- flow pipes from cisterns, and sink pipes run directly into drains or discharge in the open;