I will draw the picture of a sick room in charge of physicians and nurse, by whom this enlighted sanitation has been ignored or unheeded. It is a chamber of fear, soon, in all probability, to be the chamber of death. The room is darkened, for they are afraid of the light, that emblem of God's wisdom which should shine into all rooms, except when it is disagreeable to the patient. The ventilation is insufficient, for draughts, you must know, are very dangerous. The friends have doleful faces, moist eyes, sad voices, which reveal danger and doubt, and they converse in subdued whispers, which alarm and annoy the patient. The nurse and the doctor sometimes talk of their cases before the sick man, tell how very ill they were, how they suffered, how they got well miraculously, or how they died. The sympathetic visitor regales his hearers, the patient included, with his or her knowledge of similar cases, and their results, the great amount of sickness prevailing, and the success or ill success of this or that doctor.
They all agree that it is dangerous to change the patient's linen, dangerous to sponge the body, dangerous to give him cold water; milk is feverish, meat is too strong. A shadow of fear seems to hang over everybody. The pulse is counted, the temperature is taken. Nurse or nearest friend wants to know aloud the report of the watch and the thermometer. The doctor answers aloud, and all look grave. And so it goes on day after day, thoughts and images of pain and sickness and danger and death being impressed and reflected upon the mind of the patient, and the great, sound, glorious spirit within finds it impossible to break through this dense atmosphere of material superstitions, fear, ignorance, and folly, and restore its own body to health and happiness.
The true sanitarian will remember in his treatment the tremendous power of words and ideas upon the sick. He will never indicate by his language, his looks, or his conduct that he thinks the patient is very ill. He will cleanse his own mind of morbid fears and apprehensions, and reflect the stimulating light of hope on all around him. The suppression of anxiety, and even sometimes of sympathy, is necessary. His sickness should not be discussed before the patient, or any other case of sickness alluded to. The doctor's opinion of the case should never be asked, and never given within the patient's hearing. Erase, as far as possible, all thoughts of disease, danger, or death. The sick-room should not be darkened and made silent. It should be made cheerful and natural, as if no sickness existed. It should have fresh air, and cool water, and the fragrance of flowers, instead of the odor of drugs. Hope, and not fear, should be the presiding genius of the place.
The mind-curers and the Christian Scientists say that almost all acute diseases can be cured without medicine by the simple dissipation of fear from the mind of the patient, of his friends, and of his doctor. Whether this be true or not, it is very certain that when an epidemic is threatened or prevailing, the people who are constantly talking about and discussing the disease, the newspapers which daily report its progress and fatality, and the doctors and nurses who ventilate their experiences, who predict evil, speak ominously and enjoin all sorts of precautions, are themselves fomenters and carriers of the disease, infectious centers to the whole community.
Education can do much, but it is useless to expect the total eradication of fear without the aid and guidance of the religious principle. Fear is the cry of the wounded selfhood for something he has suffered or lost, or is about to lose. "Perfect love casteth out fear"—the perfect love of God and the neighbor. He who is in bondage to the senses has everything to dread. He alone is free from all apprehensions whose heart and mind are stayed upon the living God. He truly "sits under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to make him afraid."