IN THE SICK-ROOM ; OR, SANITARY NURSING.
"O woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please —
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A mmistering angel thou!"
iF every law of life were faithfully obeyed, its nature and
application having been n ad,^ part of the training of
every child, and repeated till as familiar as the multipli-
cation table, there is no doubt that dying would be as
unconscious an act as that of birth. Now and then such
a case is seen, but the physician of widest experience can record but
few. Dr. Richardson, whose name is famiHar to all as one of the
popular scientific writers on the hygiene of daily life, and who has
observed with the utmost minuteness the course of life and death in'
thousands of patients, records but ten such cases. After a life of
simple obedience to all natural law, temperance in all things having
secured sound body and sound mind up to advanced age, the intel-
lectual faculties seemed quietly to slip away. To sleep and not to-
dream was the pressing need, till nearly all the hours passed in this
manner. " The awakenings were shorter and shorter; painless, care-
less, happy awakenings to the hum of a busy world, to the merry
sounds of children at play, to the sounds of voices offering aid ; to the .
effort of talking on simple topics and recalling events that have dwelt
longest on the memory ; apd then again the overpowering sleep.
Thus on and on, until at length, the intellectual nature last, the
instinctive and merely animal functions, now no longer required to
(153)
154 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.
sustain the higher faculties, in their turn succumb and fall into the
inertia."
This is natural death, and not many generations will pass before
death by disease will be counted unnatural, and " this act of death,
now, as a rule, so dreaded, because so premature, shall, arriving only
at its appointed hour, suggest no terror, inflict no agony."
This is for the future. For the present we are still the victims of
inherited or acquired or accidental disease. Every house is at some
time in its existence a hospital ; every woman, whether fitted for it
or not, a nurse. That in the larger cities and towns a corps of trained
nurses is yearly made ready for this unending battle with disease,
does not affect the fact, that the majority must remain untrained. The
rich can call upon efficient aid ; the poor, if in cities, can have the
comfort of a well-ordered hospital ; but where thousands can be cared
for by these methods, millions are beyond their reach, and must trust
to such care as can be given in the home.
Page 95
Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
"O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please — And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!"
iF every law of life were faithfully obeyed, its nature and application having been n read, part of the training of every child, and repeated till as familiar as the multiplication table, there is no doubt that dying would be as unconscious an act as that of birth. Now and then such a case is seen, but the physician of widest experience can record but few. Dr. Richardson, whose name is familiar to all as one of the popular scientific writers on the hygiene of daily life, and who has observed with the utmost minuteness the course of life and death in' thousands of patients, records but ten such cases. After a life of simple obedience to all natural law, temperance in all things having secured sound body and sound mind up to advanced age, the intellectual faculties seemed quietly to slip away. To sleep and not to dream was the pressing need, till nearly all the hours passed in this manner. " The awakenings were shorter and shorter; painless, careless, happy awakenings to the hum of a busy world, to the merry sounds of children at play, to the sounds of voices offering aid ; to the . effort of talking on simple topics and recalling events that have dwelt longest on the memory ; and then again the overpowering sleep. Thus on and on, until at length, the intellectual nature last, the instinctive and merely animal functions, now no longer required to
(153)
154 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.
sustain the higher faculties, in their turn succumb and fall into the inertia."
This is natural death, and not many generations will pass before death by disease will be counted unnatural, and " this act of death, now, as a rule, so dreaded, because so premature, shall, arriving only at its appointed hour, suggest no terror, inflict no agony."
This is for the future. For the present we are still the victims of inherited or acquired or accidental disease. Every house is at some time in its existence a hospital ; every woman, whether fitted for it or not, a nurse. That in the larger cities and towns a corps of trained nurses is yearly made ready for this unending battle with disease, does not affect the fact, that the majority must remain untrained. The rich can call upon efficient aid ; the poor, if in cities, can have the comfort of a well-ordered hospital ; but where thousands can be cared for by these methods, millions are beyond their reach, and must trust to such care as can be given in the home.