THE SICKROOM FIRE.
I am neither doctor nor nurse by profession, but have had twice in my lifetime to abandon my ordinary occupation and take charge of members of my family who suffered from severe illness. Like others who were not taught ‘the regular way,’ I had to meet difficulties as they arose, and, as often happens, necessity became the mother of invention.
My first patient was my father: he suffered from nervous fever; and the slightest noise caused him great suffering, every sound appearing to be magnified to an extraordinary degree. It was, of course, important that nothing should occur to break the light sleep which he got from time to time. His illness occurred in winter, and the season was an unusually severe one of frost. It was necessary to keep a fire in the bedroom; yet I found that the poking of it, dropping of cinders on the fender-pan, and the putting of coals on the fire, interfered sadly with my patient’s rest; and I saw that I must get rid of the noise if my nursing was to be a success. My first step was to send out of the room both fender and fire-irons, and to get an ordinary walking-stick, such as is sold for sixpence. With this I cleared the bars and did what poking was necessary for several weeks. When it took fire, as it occasionally did, a rub upon the hob put it out. All the rattle of fire-irons and fender was got rid of, and my first difficulty was overcome. My remaining trouble was putting coals on the fire. If I shook them out of the scuttle into the grate, it made a deal of noise; if I rooted them out with a scoop, the sound was nearly as great, and more irritating, because more prolonged. I managed to get out of that difficulty by making up the coal in parcels. I brought my coal-box downstairs, and taking a couple of scoopfuls of coal at a time, I folded it in a piece of newspaper, and then tied each parcel with string. I put the parcels one upon another in it until the coal-box was full, and took them to my patient’s room. When the fire wanted replenishing, I placed a parcel upon it; the paper burned, away, and the coal settled down gently with little or no sound. After this, the fire was no longer a trouble to me or to my patient.
Some years after my first experience at nursing, my wife was suddenly attacked with typhus fever. I had to clear the house of children and servants, and send for two hospital nurses. When I was preparing for the night on the evening of their arrival, the nurse who was about to sit up smiled when she saw me bring into the patient’s room a coal-box full of paper parcels. She evidently looked upon it as the whim of an amateur. The next morning, she took quite another view of the case, and said: ‘I thought, sir, that I knew my business pretty well; but you certainly have taught me something I did not know—how to manage a sickroom fire. Why, I often let the fire out, and had to sit for hours in the cold, for fear of wakening patients when they were getting a good sleep, besides missing the fire afterwards, when they wakened, and I had not a warm drink for them or the means of making it. With your parcels, I had a good fire all night without a sound, and never had to soil my fingers.’