TAKING CARE OF THE SICK.
The art of taking care of the sick should be a part of female
education. Five reasons for this. Doing good. Doing good by proxy.
Great value of personal services. How can young women be trained to
these services? Contagion. Breathing bad air. Aged nurses. Scientific
instruction of nurses. Visiting and taking care of the sick, a
religious duty. Appeal to young women.
The art of taking care of the sick, should be considered an
indispensable part of female education. Some of the reasons for this
are the following:
1. As society now is, there is danger that the number of our young
women who fall into a state of indifference, not to say absolute
disgust, with the world and with life, will greatly increase, unless
the sex can be led, by an improved course of education, to exercise
more of that active sympathy with suffering which prompts to assist in
relieving it.
2. Nurses of the sick are greatly needed. It not unfrequently happens,
that good nurses cannot be obtained, male or female, except by going
very far in search for them. And yet it would seem that every one must
know the _importance_ of good nurses, from the prevalence of the
maxim--not more prevalent than just--"A good nurse is worth as much as
a physician."
What physician has not, again and again, seen all his efforts fail to
do any good, because not sustained by the labors of a skilful,
intelligent, faithful and persevering nurse? This condition is one of
the most trying that can befall him; and yet, trying as it is, it is
his very frequent lot.
3. Females are better qualified--other things being the same--for
attending the sick, than males. They not only have a softer hand, and
more kindness and gentleness, but they are also more devoted to
whatever they undertake; and they have more fortitude in scenes of
trial and distress. Their thoughts are, moreover, less engrossed by the
cares of business, and by other objects, than those of our sex. They
seem formed for days, and months, and years of watchfulness--not only
over our earliest infancy, but also over our first and second
childhood. And it were strange indeed, if nature, in qualifying them
for all this, had not qualified them to watch over us during the few
short years that intervene.
There may, indeed, be instances--there certainly are some such--where
the physical strength of females, unaided, is not sufficient for the
task of which I am speaking. For the most part, however, it is
gentleness, and patience, and fortitude, which are most wanted and in
these, woman stands pre-eminent.
4. It is often advantageous to have female assistance in taking care of
the sick, because it can be afforded at a much lower rate than that of
males. There are females who need the avails of these labors for a
livelihood; but not having been trained to them, they are not, of
course, employed. Hence there is suffering in both ways. The sick
suffer in the loss of the needed help, and the indigent woman suffers
for want of the avails of that labor which she might have been trained
to perform.
One great advantage of being able thus to obtain female attendants at a
cheaper rate, is that the sick would be more likely to have the regular
attention, or at least, the general care, of the same individual.
Thousands and thousands of sick people have died, who might easily have
recovered, had they been able to employ a regular nurse. Where a change
of nurses takes place almost every day, no one of them feels that
degree of responsibility which it is highly desirable that somebody, in
this capacity, should feel.
5. I have spoken of the necessity of having young women trained to the
art of taking care of the sick, that it may open a door to their
sympathies. But it should also be done to open the door to their
charities. Such charities as the gratuitous attendance of the sick,
where it can be afforded, are among the most valuable which can
possibly be bestowed. [Footnote: I mean, here, to speak only of those
charities which go to _correct_ the evils, which are in the world; for
however great the good we may do in spending time and influence in
correcting evil, the same amount of effort, rightly applied, must
always do still more good in the way of prevention.] Had we ever so
much money to give to the sick and distressed, it might be misapplied;
or, at least, applied in a way we should not approve. Even if it were
spent to procure good attendance, are we quite sure our own attendance
would not be still more useful? Is it not always better to do the good
ourselves--provided we are competent to do it--than by proxy;
especially, by employing those whom we know little or nothing of? If we
do all the good we are able to do, with our own hands, we feel that we
have better discharged our duty, than if we had first turned our labor
into money, and then applied the money to the same purpose.
But how is it possible, I shall doubtless be asked, that in a healthy
community like that of our own New England, young women generally can
be trained to understand this office?
There is no great difficulty in the case. Healthy as we are--that is,
comparatively so--we have in every neighborhood, if not in every
family, ample opportunities for initiating the young into this most
indispensable art. It is not expected, nor is it indeed desirable, that
they should be fully employed, or made fully responsible, at first.
There should be a sort of apprenticeship served, to this trade as well
as to any other. Indeed, I hardly know of an occupation or an art,
which more demands a long apprenticeship, than this. Put, as I was
going on to say, let young women, at a very early age, be gradually
inducted into the office. Some young female of their own age, is
perhaps sick. Let them solicit their mother and the friends of the
diseased, to permit them to be present a part or all of the time, that
they may observe and early understand the art of taking care of the
sick.
Let the young woman _solicit_ her mother, I say; because I apprehend,
as I have done all along, that the work of reformation in this matter,
no less than in others, must begin with the young woman. She finds
herself twelve, fourteen or sixteen years of age, and entering upon a
life involving duties and responsibilities, to her before unthought
of--and for which she finds herself most sadly unprepared. She believes
in the necessity of self-effort. What conscience tells her ought to be
done, she decides to do. She goes forward intelligently and what she
begins, she resolves, if possible, shall be finished.
Let it not be objected, that the introduction of the young to the sick
room will expose them, unnecessarily, either to contagion or the
breathing of bad air. For as to contagion, there is probably much less
of it in the world than many suppose. But whether there is less or more
danger, the best way to do, as the world is now situated, is, to inure
ourselves, gradually, to disease. There are in New York and
Philadelphia, many very aged persons, who have been employed as
professional attendants of the sick during all the visitations of those
cities with yellow fever and cholera, who have yet never taken either
of those diseases.
It is our fear of taking disease, very often, which makes us take it.
The sum total of the danger to the community, as a community, of
contracting even contagious disease, will actually be much lessened,
rather than increased, by all our young females being trained in the
art and practice of nursing the sick. And the same might be said of the
danger from bad air; because, the better the nurse is--that is, the
more thoroughly and scientifically she understands her profession--the
more pains will be taken in regard to ventilating, both the rooms of
the sick and of those who are healthy.
I know, very well, that to be a complete professional nurse, requires a
good deal of instruction in anatomy, physiology, hygiene and
chemistry--to say nothing of botany, and pharmacy, and materia medica.
But are not females fully competent to all this? Are they not as much
so, to say the least, as males? Besides, the same information which is
so indispensable to a nurse, if it should not be much wanted for this
purpose, (for some females would not be needed as nurses, to a very
great extent,) would be of inestimable value in the early management of
a family.
What can be more pitiable, than to see a young widowed mother--say at
twenty-five or thirty years of age--in poverty, in a situation remote
from neighbors, with three or four children sick with some epidemic
disease, while she is utterly unacquainted with the best methods of
taking care of them. Let it be supposed, still further, that she is
without a physician, and destitute of a nurse, excepting herself. What
is she to do? Take care of them herself she cannot, as she may honestly
tell you; having never taken care of a sick person, even a near
relation, for so much as a single day or night in her whole life!
"I was sick and ye visited me," is represented, moreover, by the Judge
of all the earth, as one of the grounds--not of salvation from sin--but
of final reward in the world of spirits. But can any one believe our
Saviour here means those empty, hollow-hearted visits now so common
among us?--just going, I mean, to a sick neighbor's door, and asking
how she does--or peradventure stepping in, only to stare at the
sufferer, and with a half suppressed breath and a sigh, to hope to
comfort her by wishing she may ultimately recover? No such thing. The
Saviour, by visiting the sick, meant those kind and valuable offices
which are worthy of the name; especially, when performed by the kind
and gentle hand of a lovely, intelligent, benevolent and pious woman.
Oh, young woman! hadst thou but a glimpse of one half the angelic
offices in thy power, how wouldst thou labor and pray for those
qualities and that education, which would enable thee to act up to the
dignity of thy nature, in the sight of God, angels and men! How wouldst
thou labor to accomplish thy noble destiny.