Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

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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    reasonable. The distinction is this, if he is oblif]jed to act, do not ''disturb him with another subject of thought just yet; help him to do what he wants to do : but, if he has done this, or if nothing can be done, then disturb him by all means. You will relieve, more effectually, unreasonable suiFering from reasonable causes by telling him the news, showing him the baby, or giving him something new to think of or to look at than by all the logic in the world. It has been very justly said that the sick are like children in this, that there is wo proportion in events to them. Now it is your busi- ness as their visitor to restore this right proportion for them—to shew them what the rest of the world is doing. How can they find it out otherwise ? You will find them far more open to conviction than children in this. And you will find that their unreasonable intensity of suffering from unkindness, from want of sympathy, &c., will disappear with their freshened interest in the big world's events. But then you must be able to give them real interests, not gossip. Note.—There are two classes of patients which are imfortunately becoming Two new more common every day, especially among women of the richer orders, to whom classes of all these remarks are pre-eminently inapplicable. 1. Those who make health an patients pecu- excuse for doing nothing, and at the same time allege that the being able to do liar to this nothing is their only grief. 2. Those who have brought upon themselves ill- generation, health by over pursuit of amusement, which they and their friends have most unhappily called intellectual activity. I scarcely know a greater injury that can be inflicted than the advice too often given to the first class '' to vegetate — or than the admiration too often bestowed on the latter class for pluck. XIII. OBSEEVATION OF THE SI€K. There is no more silly or universal -question scarcely asked than What is the this, Is he better ? Ask it of the medical attendant, if you please, use of the But of whom else, if you wish for a real answer to your question, question, Is he would you ask it ? Certainly not of the casual visitor; certainly ^ ^''' not of the nurse, while the nurse's observation is so little exercised as it is now. What you want are facts, not opinions—for who can have any opinion of'any value as to whether the patient is better or worse, excepting the constant medical attendant, or the really observing nurse ? The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses ib to teach them what to observe—how to observe—what symptoms indicate improvement—what the reverse—which are of importance —which are of none—whioh are the evidence of neglect—and of what kind of neglect. All this is what ought to make part, and an essential part, of the training of every nurse. At present how few there are, either pro- fessional or unprofessional, who really know at all whether any sick person they may be with is better or worse. The vagueness and looseness of the information one receives m answer to that much abused question, Is he better?^' would b©