“The time when people take cold (and there are many ways of taking cold, besides a cold in the nose), is when they first get up after the two-fold exhaustion of dressing and of having had the skin relaxed by many hours, perhaps days, in bed, and thereby rendered more incapable of reaction. Then the same temperature which refreshes the patient in bed may destroy the patient just risen. And common sense will point out, that, while purity of air is essential, a temperature must be secured which shall not chill the patient.”
“Of all methods of keeping patients warm the very worst certainly is to depend for heat on the breath and bodies of the sick.”
“To be ‘in charge’ is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself, but to see that every one else does so too; to see that no one either wilfully or ignorantly thwarts or prevents such measures. It is neither to do everything yourself nor to appoint a number of people to each duty, but to ensure that each does that duty to which he is appointed.”
“Conciseness and decision are, above all things, necessary with the sick. Let your thought expressed to them be concisely and decidedly expressed. What doubt and hesitation there may be in your own mind must never be communicated to theirs.”
“‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ is the very worst and most dangerous maxim for a nurse which ever was made. Patience and resignation in her are but other words for carelessness or indifference—contemptible, if in regard to herself; culpable, if in regard to her sick.”
“I would appeal most seriously to all friends, visitors, and attendants of the sick to leave off this practice of attempting to ‘cheer’ the sick by making light of their danger and by exaggerating their probabilities of recovery.”