Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.
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![that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room. And that it is not only light hut direct sun-light the}^ want. I had rather have the power of carrying my patient about after the sun, according to the aspect of tlie rooms, if circumstances ])ermit, than let him linger in a room when the sun is off. People think the effect is upon the spirits only. This is by no means the case. The sun is Dot only a painter but a sculptor. Tou admit that he does the photograph. Without going into any scientific exposition we must admit that light has quite as real and tangible effects upon tlio human body. But this is not all. Who has not observed the purifying effect of light, and especially of direct sunlight, upon tlie air of a room ? Here is an observation within everybody's expe- rience. Go into a room where the shutters are always shut, (in a sick room or a bedroom there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited, though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air, of air i. e. unpurified by the effect of the sun's rays. The mustiness of dark rooms and corners, indeed, is proverbial. The cheerfulness of a room, the usefulness of light in treating disease is all-important. Aspect, view, ^ very high authority in hospital construction has said that and sunlight people do not enough consider the difference between wards and matters of first dormitories in planning their buildings. But I go farther, and say, importance ^j^r^^ healthy people never remember the difference between led- to the sick. rooms and sfci-rooms, in making arrangements for the sick. To a sleeper in health it does not signify what the view is from his bed. He ought never to be in it excepting when asleep, and at night. Aspect does not very much signify either (provided the sun reach his bed-room some time in every day, to purify the air), because he ought never to be in his bed-room except during the hours when there is no sun. But the case is exactly reversed with the sick, even should they be as many hours out of their beds as you are in yours, which probably they are not. Therefore, that they should be able, ■without raising themselves or turning in bed, to see out of window from their beds, to see sky and sun-light at least, if you can show them nothing else, I assert to be, if not of the very first importance for recovery, at least something very near it. And you should there- fore look to the position of the beds of your sick one of the very first things. If they can see out of two windows instead of one, so much the better. Again, the morning sun and the mid-day sun—the hours when they are quite certain not to be up, are of more importance to them, if a choice must be made, than the afternoon sun. Perhaps TOU can take them out of bed in the afternoon and set them by the window, where they can see the sun. But the best rule is, if possible, to give them direct sun-light from the moment he rises till the moment he sets. Another great difference between the 5et?-room and the sidc-xoom. is, that the sleeper has a very large balance of fresh air to begin with, when he begins the night, if his room has been open all day as it ought to be; the sich man has not, because all day ho lias been](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20452524_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
