{401}
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
HOME-NURSING.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
SOME LEGAL DECISIONS.
TERRIBLY FULFILLED.
PROLONGING LIFE.
A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD.
AN ANCIENT PEOPLE.
THE NET OF MARRIAGE.
TRIFLES.
No. 27.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, JULY 5, 1884.
HOME-NURSING.
BY A LADY.
FIRST ARTICLE.
Illness in some form is so often amongst us,that it may safely be said there is no occupationof more universal importance than the care ofthe sick, and there are few women worthy of thename who at some time or other are not calledupon to minister to the needs of sufferers bydisease or accident.
Much has been done of late years to improvethe tone of nursing amongst those who takeit up as a profession, so that the ‘Sarey Gamp’of old times has practically given place to theskilled, conscientious nurse, who has been trainedto look upon her work as something more thana mere means of livelihood. But whilstthis is true of those who devote their livesto nursing, there still remains a vast amount ofignorance, even of its very elements, amongstthose who are only occasionally called upon tobedside-ministration, and it is our object in thisseries of papers to give our readers such informationas may fit them to act on an emergency, ifnot with the skill of the trained nurse, with atleast so much knowledge and intelligence as shallgive the patient some chance of comfort and help.Not, of course, that the practical work of nursingcan be acquired by any amount of book-knowledgealone; but for those who cannot spare time forregular hospital training, it is of great importanceto understand at anyrate what should be aimedat in nursing; and were this more widely understood,it would do much towards mitigating theavoidable sufferings inflicted on unhappy patientswho have to be nursed by those who are fullof love indeed, but without any idea of thework they are undertaking.
This brings me to a point on which I canhardly be too emphatic. In cases of serious illness,especially where there is much acute pain,secure, if possible, the services of a trained nurse.Apart from her superior knowledge of means forgiving relief, the patient will be much morelikely to yield to the authority of a stranger, andat the same time the stranger being used to thesight of suffering, will have