Every experienced person, and every liberal physician and medical
man, is sensible of the value of a careful, skilful, and kind-hearted
nurse, and that the alleviation of sickness and the actual cure of
diseases, depend as much on the anxious attention of the nurse, as on
the efficacy of medicine itself. Good temper, patience, watchfulness,
and sobriety, are the cardinal virtues of every good nurse, and when
possessed by one who unites skill with those personal qualities, she is
a treasure above all price.
Although the chamber nurse forms no part of the establishment of
healthy families, yet as in every family she is a necessary auxiliary
for longer or shorter periods, a brief notice of her qualifications and
duties, will confer completeness on such a volume as the present.
The chamber or sick nurse should be qualified for her duty by some
experience; and if her experience has been considerable, and she is a
woman of good understanding, she will prove herself quite as important
in the nursery of the sick, as medical practitioners, or all the drugs
in an apothecary’s shop. She ought to be past the middle age, and if a
married woman or widow, so much the better. She ought to be clean in
her person, and neat in her dress, and free from habits of drinking
or snuff-taking. She ought also to be a woman of cheerful and equable
temper, and, above all things, free from superstition, or belief in
charms, omens, signs, dreams, and other follies of gross ignorance.
The sick room should be clean, well aired, and free from noisome
smells; and, on the contrary, the air should be purified by sprinkling
vinegar or eau de cologne, and occasionally burning a little vinegar in
a heated shovel.
Quietness, in every respect, is of the first consequence. Fire irons
should be avoided: creaking doors and locks should be oiled; and list
shoes constantly worn. Talking loud and whispering, so as to excite the
suspicion of the patient, should be equally avoided; and a long feather
should be pushed through the key-hole, as a signal on the outside, when
the patient is asleep. The nurse should only sleep when the patient
sleeps, as one means of preventing the patient being awoke by her
frivolous activity.
In cases of contagion, whatever is sent out of the room, should be
immersed in water, and the nurse should be careful not to receive the
breath of the patient, nor to sit on the bed. She should also carry
about her person a bag of camphor, and during such diseases, frequently
fumigate the room with vinegar, and indulge occasionally in half a
glass of brandy.
The sick chamber should be provided with a lamp and appurtenances,
for heating whatever may be wanted; with a tea kettle, two or three
saucepans, empty bottles for hot water, (to put to the feet,) some
sal volatile and spirits, a bottle of salts, and of eau de cologne;
some lambs-wool gloves to rub the patient, a bed-pan, a foot-bath, or
a large tin bath; some lemonade, barley-water, and toast and water:
oranges, lemons, and empty medicine bottles, which occasion smells that
infect the air, should be kept in an adjoining room. There should also
be a supply of flannel, old linen, and napkins, for every purpose.
Different medicines should be carefully kept apart; lest pernicious
ones be given, or proper ones, at improper times. A thermometer in the
room is the only means of keeping an equal temperature, or increasing
or diminishing it, as the medical attendants may direct.
The reports of the nurse to the physician, and the observations of
the physician, should always be made in an adjoining room, and the
mind of the patient not be distracted by details of symptoms, and of
the nurse’s business. Changes which take place after the visit of the
medical attendant, should be immediately reported, and in all that
regards the administration of the medicines, and the general system
of treatment, the nurse should scrupulously obey the instructions of
the medical advisers, not only as the most likely means of promoting
the speedy recovery of the patient, but to remove from herself all
responsibility and blame. At the same time, she should not withhold her
opinion, in regard to the effect of the medicines administered, and
in her conferences with the medical advisers, should suggest whatever
appears likely to be useful.
Nurses, according to the length of a disease, are paid by the day,
week, or month; and as boarders in the family, they ought not to take
advantage of the sympathy which induces the relatives of the sick to
afford them every indulgence, so as to involve unnecessary or wanton
expenses; but consider the interest of the family, whose affliction
requires their attendance, as their own. The usual payment of a nurse
in London, is from 10s. 6d. to 15s. per week, according to the
circumstances of the parties, and of the case.
Nurses who have to compound and administer Family Medicines must be
prepared with proper scales and weights; and with graduated glass
measures, such as are used by Apothecaries; according to the following