Nooks and Corners / being the companion volume to 'From Kitchen to Garret'

by J. E. Panton

And now comes the great subject of nursing. I was much amused the other day to see an indignant article from someone who abused the present generation of mothers because they did not nurse their children themselves in cases of infection, and because their first idea in an emergency was to send for a nurse. Now I maintain that that is the very wisest thing anyone can do. A mother, as a rule, is the worst person in the world to nurse her own child; her fearful anxiety makes her nervous and communicates itself to the patient, who ought never to know that anyone is the least anxious about him. Her face betrays her, and her shaking hands play her false, and on a thousand grounds it is far better to have a trained nurse than to trust to unskilled though loving nursing. A mother may never have had the smallest experience of nursing until she is called upon to exercise any little talent she may have for it on behalf of her nearest and dearest. She becomes frantically miserable at symptoms a nurse understands, and are often enough symptoms for good; she cannot raise a patient and give him food comfortably, as does a woman trained to the work, and she cannot be the ‘half-doctor’ all nurses ought undoubtedly to be, and indeed are nowadays, unless she has had training; a course of training, by the way, which would be most distasteful to many and absolutely impossible to the few.

A nurse is born, not made; of that I am absolutely convinced from my own experience. I do not think anything would make me personally fit to nurse anyone, much as I should like to do it. Were I called upon to turn nurse I could undoubtedly keep a room neat, smooth a pillow, and fold a sheet over properly; but I stand by in amaze and watch a friend of mine who has never been trained, but is a born nurse, who knows exactly how to lift her patient, when and how to give beef-tea and medicine, and who does easily and without effort what I cannot do at all, try as hard as I may to follow her excellent example. She may be anxious, she never shows it in the least; she may be tired to death, she does not look it; her voice is always at the right pitch, and though she naturally is not merry when there is danger, she maintains an even cheerfulness which is delightful, and as restful to the patient as it is most undoubtedly restful and reassuring to the patient’s friends. Now, sentiment apart—and sentiment should never be considered in the very least degree where real work has to be done—surely my friend is better able to nurse, and a much safer nurse, than I should be; I, who have honestly and seriously tried to overcome my stupidity and dread of sick people, and who visited at a hospital regularly until I was utterly and completely routed by seeing a man in a fit, since when I have avoided hospitals and have quite come to the conclusion I should never be a nurse. Therefore, is it not wiser for people in real cases of dangerous illness to engage women who understand their work? I am convinced it is, and strongly recommend anyone who is advised by the doctor to send for a nurse to do so. He will always be able to tell them where to send; if not, they can find any amount of addresses in that most useful and excellent little book ‘Dickens’s Dictionary of London.’ But the doctor should find the nurse in infectious cases, for, as a rule, he knows someone with whom he has worked already, and of course these nurses have to be sent for in a hurry; one does not make preparations for and look out for fevers as one does when a small baby is expected; about that I have said all I have to say in my other book, and shall not therefore say anything here on that absorbing subject.

Everybody should remember that illness, instead of deadening our faculties, undoubtedly and at once heightens every one we possess. We see more acutely most certainly; our smell and taste are exaggerated in the most painful degree, and little annoyances and inferior cooking, which we scarcely notice, or indeed notice not at all, when we are well, try us most dreadfully. If we are to eat at all, all must be absolutely clean and free from grease, and sent up spotlessly; there must not be a suspicion of carelessness, or inevitably we shall turn against the food and send it down untouched. Likewise, creaking shoes, rustling paper, banging doors, crooked pictures, dusty tables and chairs must not exist where there are invalids; and, above all, I am convinced that until a person is actually and positively dead no one should talk about them over their bodies, thinking they are insensible. I am certain that insensible people, so called, are often far more sensitive than either doctor or nurse will allow, and I know I myself have often heard things which were never meant for me to hear when people have thought me asleep, but when I have really simply been too tired to open my eyes; and I shall never forget the expression that flitted across the face of a dear old lady who was absolutely dying, who had not swallowed for two days, or spoken for a great many more, when her daughter and maid spoke of the mourning and funeral by her bedside heartlessly. She heard and understood, although she undoubtedly had no power of letting us know that she did so. And I, moreover, have been told by a cousin whose recovery from a frightful attack of blood-poisoning was miraculous, and who most certainly was merely saved from death by her doctor’s unremitting care and the excellent nursing she received from him—he never left her once for over forty-eight hours—that she knew absolutely everything that went on, that she heard every single word and whisper, and that she most certainly would never say a word in the presence of any ‘insensible’ person that could pain or agitate him in the least, for when she appeared most insensible to on-lookers she was really far more sensitive than she had ever been in all her life: her hearing was absolutely acute, and every sense seemed on end, a feeling I can corroborate from my own experience, though I have had no really very serious illness, but have been ill enough to comprehend this supersensitiveness and to understand how absolutely quiet and restful should be the conditions of any invalid. It sounds absurd to say that noise can kill anyone, but noise can; a sudden shock can undoubtedly snap the thread of life, while noise constantly wearing on the brain can do endless harm, especially to those who are predisposed to notice and resent continually unpleasant sounds. And now I want to give a hint to many among us who are abjectly miserable because they fancy they have some incurable complaint, and yet have not the sense or courage to really go to a good doctor and learn what is the matter, or indeed whether there is anything the matter at all. The tiny lump which appears on the neck may be nothing but a little swelling of a gland, or it may be cancer; the dreadful pain that seizes the chest may be heart or it may be indigestion; anyhow, whatever it is, it is far better to know what is the matter than to wear oneself to death in wondering if we have or have not a fatal disease.

If we have not, well and good; if we have, what, after all, does it matter? We have all fatal diseases, if it comes to that, and we are all absolutely sure, unpleasant as is the fact, that we must die, and it is something to know a little about the means and time by which we shall have to shuffle off this mortal coil; and, moreover, we can undoubtedly save ourselves endless trouble, and stave off the last day of our lives, if we learn early in the day what we have to avoid, and how best we can manage our lives, many having lost them entirely because they literally had not the courage to go to the doctor, or went to him so late that he had sorrowfully to confess he could do nothing, albeit he could have done much had the patient come to him when she or he first began to suspect there was anything amiss. I could, I am sorry to say, quote examples from my own dear and intimate friends of the evil done by this cowardly dislike to face the worst, and I therefore feel very strongly on the subject, and implore any of my readers who may suspect a lurking disease to face it. It may be nothing but fancy; even so, the fancy should be exorcised. It may be fatal; then the doctor will lay down rules at once for guidance, and even if death is imminent it is just as well to know this. There are things to do quietly, and one’s house to set in order, albeit there is no need to make the lives of all one’s relations burdens to them; neither need we make ourselves miserable beforehand by everlasting contemplation of the inevitable parting. Be quite sure, whether it comes at 100, at 20, at 40, we none of us realise or relish the idea, but when a thing must be it is best to accept it gracefully; people will remember us much more kindly if we go cheerfully, and do not make them all wretched by kicking against the pricks.

And, above all, remember if you have a disease to keep the fact to yourself and to your doctor; no one else wants to hear about it, and it is interesting to no one else. If you become an invalid you can be both cheerful and useful, although I know how hateful—how truly hateful—it is to put up the once active feet, and cross the once busy hands, and simply listen to what we once used to do. I know too that a good listener is highly appreciated, and that many a happy home finds the heart of the house round the invalid sofa, where can always be found someone who is always at home, always disengaged, always willing to help and anxious to hear, and who has a most profound interest in all that is going on, despite the fact that she is out of the action, and can only take a passive part in the life that seemed once as if it could never go on without her.

Moreover, an invalid should never become absorbed in herself, in her treatment, her medicine, and the progress of her malady; having found her doctor to be trustworthy, she should do as he tells her, and after his visit she should utterly decline to speak of herself; she should read, if possible work (how I do wish I could sew, or knit, or do anything on earth save read and write!), and, above all she should be absolutely nice and particular about her clothes, which should never degenerate (unless it is absolutely necessary) into the dressing-gown stage. Loose garments are untidy, and anything untidy or ‘dressing-gowny’ assists the invalid idea, which should be kept in the background as much as possible.

Then there is another thing I should like to mention, and that is that invalids should always have their affairs settled, and their wishes as regards the future of their children or their property entirely and properly understood—that is to say, understood and settled as far as anything can be settled that is so unknown as the future—and while a man is an absolute criminal who neglects to make his will, a woman is equally foolish who, having strong feelings on subjects which will concern her children, or may be the place of her burial, does not write such a letter on the subject to her husband, to be opened after her death, as shall lay all her wishes before him, but only as wishes: the dead hand should never fetter anyone; at best it should only indicate the course which the owner would have followed.

In but one case should a man or a woman who has property put an emphatic embargo on the future proceedings of the husband or wife, and then only if there are children, and that is in the case of the husband or wife remarrying. Under these circumstances the property should go absolutely into the hands of trustees, to be administered entirely for the use of the children, who are often enough defrauded of their father’s or mother’s money, which goes to keep some lazy man or extravagant woman who in their time may produce children to share that which was only meant for the owner’s own offspring.

This rule should never be departed from under any circumstances: it should be absolutely out of anyone’s power to defraud children of what was intended for them alone by the one parent who had money. This does not prevent a man or a woman marrying again; they had the same chances, if they wanted them, as they had before; but it does prevent the children being robbed, as I have known them robbed, in more than one case, by their silly mothers, who, yearning for the love and protection they have lost, cast themselves into the arms of number two, doubly flattered at being wooed when their first bloom has vanished, and find themselves saddled with men who neglect the business they were supposed to keep together, or squander the money saved so hardly and set aside so carefully for those who cannot help themselves or stay the marriage that will inevitably spoil their home life if it do not wreck their futures.

Let the wife have all control until she marries again; then someone else should step in, as undoubtedly if a woman does not care to remember her husband she will not care to assure herself and protect his children from an extravagant, improvident man; and of course a man should be treated in the same way; all control as long as he remembers his wife, none when he ceases to do so and would maintain a successor out of the money she meant for her children’s welfare.