Hospitals are too White and Staring. 239

Then there was a general exhibition of legs (plaster), and I found each one had an infallible test of progress within reach.

Poor things! they looked on the casts made when they entered the hospital as George Stephenson might at the model of an old stage-coach.

I don't think a hospital, though, generally a pleasant sight, high as its character deservedly is. You are overwhelmed with a consciousness of cleanliness and ventilation. It must be depressing, too, for sick to see sick; moreover, in my humble opinion, hospital walls are too white and staring; I should like to see more colour, and less rigid uniformity of arrangement. But still, even as opportunities for the gaining of experience by young surgeons, which they are, quite as much as anything else, the hospitals of London are sights well worth your going to see; and at least, you may learn from them to thank God for your own bedroom, where you sleep in private peace.

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NURSING.

FTER Miss Nightingale's bright and wise little book about Nursing, it is with some hesitation, on my own. account, that I put such a title to my paper. Still, as I have seen a great deal of sickness, and, what is perhaps as much to the purpose, have been nursed myself, we will have, if you please, a little quiet talk about the Principles of Nursing.

I do not profess to set rules for the management of the sick room. I offer no receipt for beef-tea. I give no hint about sanitary laws. I suggest no improved code of hospital regulations. But I venture to say a word about the spirit in which the work of a nurse is to be always done, whether at home or in a public institution; whether by an amateur or an expert.

The first and last requisite in a nurse, is Hope. We are saved by hope. This encourages and ensures life. We enjoy most

that which we have not fully got. We begin to sicken directly we repose upon success. Faith and Hope, as well as Love, characterise eternity. These three abide. Such as are saved are always fed with Hope. There can be no cure without it. The commonplace nurse says, "While there is life there is hope." This is the vulgar maxim. It is more true to say, "While there is hope there is life."

Sympathy is so powerful, that next to having hope in ourselves, it is of the first importance to have it near us. We catch it.

While nothing can be more bald and dispiriting than the professional smile of a fat old woman, without stays, who is paid to keep awake at night (which she does not), there is nothing more contagious than genuine hope. I do not mean belief, expressed or not, that a particular patient will recover, but hopefulness, which is like sunshine, which warms and cherishes the failing sap of life.

It is the business of the nurse to look, not to the disease, but to the natural power which is making a protest against it. She-I use the feminine gender, though bearded, grizzled men have nursed with the tenderness of womanshe must search for the strength there is in

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the sick man, and protect that; she must seek for the little spark of the old fire which lies under the choked or burned-up heap, and educate that, helping it to circulate again through the body within which it has shrunk. Without an eye on that, she may try to soothe pain in her wisest way, but she will not succeed; she will be always making some radical mistake.

I remember once, when recovering from a fever, becoming very low and wearied. The unnatural strength which fever gives had left me. I was helpless as a heap of clothes. Fever had worn me, like a coat, for weeks, but now had thrown me off, and gone. As I lay there, I felt that all I needed was to be let alone, that the skin might grow over my nerves again, that the small molecules of life might accumulate undisturbed, and build themselves quietly up, like coral. Any attempt to divert or assist me went against the grain. One day, a kind visitor hearing me say that I felt tired, began to stroke my arm. It had the same effect on me that a slow rubbing has on the edge of a finger-glass. It set up a thrill of discord which grated all over me. Then I appreciated the genius of my nurse. She let the delicate process of silent recovery

Two Classes of Patients.

243

go on without comment or curious inspection, and I gathered health with accumulating speed, as by compound interest.

Nurses should remember that almost all patients may be referred to one or other of two classes those who like, and those who dislike to be noticed. A little observation and tact will soon show to which of these two genera a sick person belongs. The whole management of the case is seriously affected by a mistake in this matter. One man is painfully checked every time you ask him how he is. The little feeler of life which he is pushing on towards recovery, starts back at the question, like the horn of a snail when you touch it. Let the snail alone, if you want it to make progress. Another man frets inwardly if you don't give him the opportunity of talking about himself. That seems to be Nature's way of freeing him from his malady. Persistent silence puts him in a passion. It clogs the mental pores which should carry the humour off. He suffers from checked moral perspiration. Let him speak about himself. He cannot get rid of his impatient sensations without some receptacle into which to pour them. Then if you, who ought to open the lid of your mind-or at least of your attention