Lectures on medical diseases for nurses / by David Forsyth.

  • David Forsyth
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lectures on medical diseases for nurses / by David Forsyth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ON TREATMENT From the nursing point of view, this subject outweighs all the others in importance, inasmuch as a nurse’s primary concern is in applying the necessary measures for relieving a patient from the effects of his disease. At the outset, therefore, it is desirable that she should have some know- ledge of the general principles which guide a physician in selecting his line of treatment, and of the main classes of measures by which these principles are carried into effect. Without doubt, the fundamental principle in a case of sickness is that Nature so leans her weight as to incline the course of every illness towards recovery, and not towards death. In other words. Nature is on the side of the physician, and not against him. Moreover, since Nature is a mightier force than any he can wield, the physician is only prudent who abstains from any interference with the course of the natural cure. And yet, on the other hand, experience soon shows that Nature is often slow, round- about, tedious, even stupid in her ways, and on such occasions the physician, alertly on the watch and quick to recognize her difficulty, will come forward with his science and his art to disentangle her from her embarrass- ment. Broadly speaking, therefore, successful treatment requires a thorough knowledge of the natural road towards recovery, in order that the way may be made smooth and i6
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