These are just the persons who are unfit to have the charge of nervous invalids, but for some mysterious reason they are just the persons into whose hands nervous invalids most often fall. Perhaps the explanation is, that ready combining power can exist only with a certain amount of sensitiveness of nervous structure, and that the sieves through which we pass our nurses may cast out those who would be of the greatest value in nervous illness, besides tending to lessen the sensitiveness of those that remain.[6] At all events, I have been disappointed to find that women from whom I hoped great things as nurses—women of good organisation, and certainly not of delicate constitution—have broken down completely in the course of their hospital training; whilst women whom I consider positively injurious to any kind of invalid have passed through it triumphantly. The question arises, Are we not unwise so to shape our sieves as to exclude the very people by whom we ourselves would most prefer to be tended in sickness? Will any mere knowledge atone for the loss of that keen intelligence which we recognise in persons of so-called sympathetic disposition?
On inquiring the reason why so many highly desirable persons have been cast out from the sieve of their hospital training, I have been told that the fact causes no concern to the authorities, so numerous are the women pressing in to take the place of the defeated strugglers for existence. If this is no answer to the inquiries, it is at least as good as most of the replies one gets when seeking for information on this unsatisfactory subject. Supposing it to be true, we may well ask further whether a too great narrowing of the spaces of the sieve in a particular direction, combined probably with an extreme elongation in another direction, does not tend to produce ill-shapen and one-sided nurses? I say tend, because the present system is still new, and though it may have immediate advantages, we should not blind ourselves to its possible disadvantages in the future. We need always to remember that a process of selection which ensures the survival of the toughest does not necessarily ensure the survival of the fittest. There is such a thing as evolving backwards, like the cave-fish who have lost their sight during their long residence in the dark. The best things in life are not machine-made.
But correct observation being such a complicated performance, we should be very indulgent to people who make mistakes; especially so if we have ever made a mistake ourselves. In our plentiful abuse of individuals, we merely display our inability to recognise the limitations and imperfections of “the thing called human nature.” We have reached a certain landing-place in our upward climb by means of paying attention to our sieves, but we have a long way still to go.
A few very simple experiments will suffice to show us how hard a thing it is to see even what lies right under our very noses. We may then perhaps realise how rash it is to form hasty opinions about the complicated and invisible nervous systems of our suffering fellow-creatures. Having got thus far, it may even dawn upon us that to make our fanciful and erroneous theories (fanciful because founded on insufficient knowledge, and erroneous because founded on the defective observations of others) the excuse for ill-treating other people’s nerves by showing a want of consideration for their sufferings, by tormenting them with painful and fantastic tricks, and by indulging our own tyranny and self-righteousness, is to manifest to the world an extremely primeval species of childishness.
I once drew a character called “Dr. Broadley,” who, excellent man though he was in some respects, put on a “stalk” when he came in contact with a nervous patient. Now, three different people thought they recognised Dr. Broadley, and informed me of the fact. They were all wrong. Not one of their three supposed models had sat to me for his portrait. I am forced, against my will, to the conclusion that there are in existence a superfluous number of persons who make the proximity of an invalid the excuse for displaying unnecessary airs. Surely it is not by such an influence, such an example, that the morals of our patients are to be improved.
I once put together two small prayer-books, so that the coloured edges of the leaves were divided only by the edge of the thin cover of each book. The leaves of one were of a bright golden colour; those of the other had been tinted a dull red. The books were momentarily held up for observation, with this interesting result. The leaves of the one book were seen correctly, so far, at least, as their colour was concerned; for they were unhesitatingly declared to be tinted with bright gold. The leaves of the other, however, were with equal readiness declared to be of a golden red colour.
It is easy to understand how this mistake arose. The golden colour was the first perceived, and the impression made by the dull red was not strong enough in comparison to be correctly seen and retained in a brief moment. The bright gold of the one book had so powerfully affected the retina that the colour was cast, so to speak, on to the leaves of the other book. These therefore appeared to be golden red in tint, instead of the dull red they were in reality.
On another occasion a small smooth cake was placed in a dish together with several large almond-cakes. When attention was attracted to it, it was mistaken for a cocoanut cake.
Here a rapid inspection had sufficed to show that one cake was smaller than the others. It had not sufficed to show the great difference in its construction. The large cakes had been first perceived, and their roughness was erroneously seen to be shared by the small cake.
Some people go through life with their minds so completely lined by a series of crystallised impressions, that no aftercomers have the smallest chance of even combining with them to produce a half-truth, to say nothing of overcoming them to a sufficient extent to drive out the errors and replace approximate truths by others still truer.