Be careful not to have any suspicion of grease about the beef tea, broths, etc. A quick and easy way to remove all grease, is to fill a cup or bowl brimming full, let it stand a few moments that the grease may rise to the top, tip the cup a very little to one side, and the grease, to the last atom, will flow over the side of the cup; pour your broth carefully into a clean hot cup, and serve. Beef juice is more palatable with a little very brown toast.
Remember, that an invalid hardly ever likes any food made sweet. No matter what the taste may be in health, in sickness, sweet things are nauseous; for this reason ice cream bought at confectioners' is often rejected. Salt also must be used with caution, if the mouth and lips are tender, as is often the case; use the salt sparingly in all broths, etc.
If your patient cannot take milk, when, as in typhoid fever, the doctor wishes the diet to be wholly or for the most part of milk, try at first to remove the thick, bad taste by giving a little pure water or carbonic acid water after it. If that will not do, mix the carbonic acid water with it, and have both nice and cold. If a glass of milk is too much (and it will be in nine cases out of ten, especially if it is cold), give half a glass; if that is still too much, give quarter of a glass, or put more water with it. Never repeat a dose (of food) if it nauseates the patient. Make some change in quantity or quality, and you will, if you watch carefully, find out the right proportions.
A person lying flat down in bed cannot, of course, drink from a glass or cup, and a feeding cup is apt, by pouring too freely, to cause choking. A bent glass tube is the best arrangement, the patient can drink easily through this, and can regulate by sucking, the rapidity with which the food is taken. The tube should be cleaned immediately after each using, and if any beef tea or other food cannot be dislodged by letting water run through it, pass a string with a knot tied in it, through. Make the knot big enough to touch all sides of the tube, have it thoroughly wet, and the cleansing will be easily and quickly accomplished. If a patient prefers drinking from a glass, and can be raised in bed, always lay a napkin under the chin before you give the drink, and on no account have the glass or cup more than half full, if you do, it will surely spill.
In giving medicine that tastes very bitter or unpleasant in any way, bring, at the same time with the medicine, some water, milk, or whatever may be preferred, to take after it. Also a napkin to wipe the lips, especially if the patient be a man.
Always keep milk, beef tea, etc., covered in the refrigerator, and, if you can, see that this is cleaned every day. But this might cause the cook to feel aggrieved, so I put it as a suggestion merely. But if the refrigerator has a smell, and the cook seems touchy, the milk, etc., better be kept upstairs on some sheltered window-ledge, and carefully covered.
If you have your own little refrigerator upstairs, see to it that it is cleaned every day. Never put away anything in tin pails; always use earthen or china bowls or pitchers.
BEEF TEA.
Beef from the round, finely chopped and free from fat. Proportions, 1 lb. beef to 1 pint of water, cold. Let the beef soak in the water, stirring occasionally, for two hours; then put it on the stove and heat it until the red color disappears; never boil it. Skim off all grease, salt to taste.