The Bedroom and Boudoir

by Lady Barker

I have often observed that when people begin to take pleasure in colour, it is a sure sign of convalescence—for in severe illness, unless indeed it be of such a nature as to preclude all power of observation, form is of more importance to the patient than colour. One learns a great deal from what people tell one after they are well enough to talk of such things as past, distempered fancies. For instance, I was once nursing a typhoid fever patient, who lay for some days in an agony of weakness. He had been deaf as well as speechless, and all his senses appeared to have faded away to the very brink of extinction. Yet afterwards when he became able to talk of his sensations at different stages of his illness, he mentioned that particular time, and I found he had been keenly conscious of the forms of the objects around. He spoke of the pleasure which the folds of a curtain had afforded him, of the “comfort” of the shape of the old-fashioned arm-chair in which I used to sit, and of how grateful he had felt when he observed that divers gimcracks had been removed from his sight. Later, as he grew better, and the weary eyes craved for colour, I found it necessary to pretend to be busy dressing dolls or making pincushions, to afford myself an excuse for a little heap of brightest coloured silks and fragments of ribbon placed where he could see them, and the daily fresh bunches of flowers were a perpetual delight to his eyes.

An ideal sick-room then should first of all possess walls which will not weary or worry the sick person, and no good pattern will do this. The low bed should be so placed that whilst it would be sheltered from draught (the aid of one or two screens will be useful here) the light would not fall disagreeably on the patient’s eyes. No rule can be given about light. In some cases the sick person loves to look out of the window all day, whilst in others a ray of light on the face is agony. In such circumstances the bed should, if possible, be so arranged as to allow the light to come from behind, for it is only in rare and exceptional cases that sunshine as well as outer air may not be admitted daily into a sick-room. We are fast getting beyond the ignorance of a north aspect for a bedroom, and most of us know that sunshine is quite as necessary to a bedroom as to a garden. No children will ever thrive unless they have plenty of sunshine, as well as air in the rooms in which they sleep, and a sick-room should also have both in abundance. If the weather be hot, it is easy, in England, to modify the temperature by means of outer blinds, persiennes, open doors, and other means. Few people understand what I have learnt in tropical countries, and that is, how to exclude the outer air during the hot hours of the day. The windows of the nursery or sick-room (for we all need to be treated like children when we are ill) should be opened wide during the early cool, morning-tide, and the room flooded with sun and outer air. Then, by nine or ten o’clock, shut up rigorously every window, darkening those on which the sun would beat, out-side the glass—by means of blinds or outer shutters—until the evening, when they may all be set wide open again. All woollen draperies, curtains and valences should be done away with in a sick-room. If the windows are unsightly without curtains, and the illness is likely to be a long one, then substitute soft, patternless muslin or chintz, or, prettiest of all, white dimity with a gay border, but let there be no places of concealment in a sick-room. Every thing unsightly or inodorous should be kept out of it, and herein is found the convenience of a well-planned and well-arranged house, where clothes-baskets, and things of that sort, can be so bestowed as to be at the same time handy and yet out of the way.

If it were not for the unconceivable untidiness and want of observation which exists in the human race, such cautions as not to leave about the room the clothes the sick person has last worn, hanging up or huddled on a chair in a corner, would seem superfluous. But I have actually seen a girl stricken down by a sudden fever, lying at death’s door, on her little white bed, whilst the wreath she wore at the ball where she took the fatal chill, still hung on her toilette glass, and her poor little satin shoes were scattered about the room.

She had been ill for days; there were two ladies’-maids in the house, besides anxious sisters, parents, and nurses, and yet no one had thought of putting these things out of sight. The first rule, therefore, to be observed in nursing even bad colds, where the sufferer may have to stay in bed a few days, is to send all the linen he has been wearing to the wash at once, and to put away everything else in its proper place. Boots should never be allowed in a sick-room, for the leather and blacking is apt to smell disagreeably and they ought immediately to be removed to another place.

Then there should be if possible outside the door of the sick-room, either on a landing or in another room, a convenient table, covered with a clean, white cloth, on which should be ranged spare spoons, tumblers, glasses, and so forth, and whatever cooling drinks are wanted, all so managed that dust shall be an impossibility. Inside the room, on another small table, or shelf, or top of chest of drawers, according to circumstances, should be kept also on a snowy cloth, just whatever is actually needed at a moment’s notice—medicines and their proper glasses, &c., and a spoon or two, but the instant anything is used, it should be an established rule that the nurse puts the spoon or glass outside, and supplies its place with a clean one. In most cases, a servant need only renew the supply outside twice a day.

As for keeping trays with nourishment in the room, it is a sign of such careless nursing that I should hardly dare to mention it, if I had not more than once gone to relieve guard in a friend’s splendid sick-room at daylight, and seen the nurse’s supper-tray of the night before on the floor whilst the room, in spite of all its beautiful decorations, smelt sickly and disgusting with the odour of stale beer and pickles. It is incredible that such things should happen, but in the confusion caused by a sudden and severe illness, untidy and careless habits are apt to come to the surface, and loom largely as aggressive faults. Sickness is not only a great test of the sufferer’s own character and disposition, but of those of the people around him, and as a general rule, I have discovered more beautiful qualities in sick people, and those about them, who dwell in cottages or even hovels, than in more splendid homes. Everyone knows how really kind poor people are to each other, and never more so than when the angel of disease or death is hovering over the humble roof-tree.

Food, or nourishment as it is called in sick-room phraseology, would not so often be refused by the patient if it were properly managed. Who does not know the wearisomeness of being asked, probably in the morning, when the very thought of food is an untold aggravation to one’s sufferings what one could “fancy”? And this is probably followed by a discussion on the merits or possibilities of divers condiments, to each of which as it is canvassed before him the wretched patient is sure to declare a deep-rooted repugnance. A sick person, until he reaches that happy stage of convalescence when it is an amusement to him, should never be allowed to hear the slightest discussion on the subject of his nourishment. Whatever the doctor orders should be prepared with as wide a range of variety as can be managed, and offered to him in the smallest permissible quantities, exactly cold or hot enough to take, and served as prettily and daintily as possible, at exactly the right moment. The chances are a hundred to one that, if it is within the range of possibilities that he can swallow at all, he will take it. If he does not, there should be no argument, no attempt at forcing it on him; it should at once be taken quite away and something different brought as soon afterwards as is prudent. Few people realise how extraordinarily keen the sense of smell becomes in illness, and how the faint ghost of a possible appetite may be turned into absolute loathing by the smell of a cup of beef-tea, cooling by the bed-side for ten minutes before it is offered.

I am always guided in a great degree about nourishment by the instincts of my patient, and I never force stimulants, or anything equally distasteful on a sick person who is at all reasonable upon such matters. I once had a patient to nurse, whose desperate illness had brought him very near the shadowy land. It had left him, and the doctors assured me that his life depended on how much brandy I could get down his throat during the night. I told him this, for he was quite sensible, when he refused the first teaspoonful, and he whispered in gasps, “I’ll take as much milk as you like; that stuff kills me.” So I gave him teaspoonfuls of pure milk all through the night every five minutes, and not a drop of brandy. The doctor’s first reproachful glance in the morning was at the untouched brandy bottle, and he shook his head, but when he had felt the sick man’s pulse his countenance brightened, and he graciously gave me permission to go on with the milk. Of course there are cases when the patient never expresses an opinion one way or other, and then the only safe rule is to obey the doctor’s orders, but I never fly in the face of any strong instinct of a sick person rationally expressed. So now I hope we have some glimmering idea of what a sick-room should be: cool in summer, warm in winter, but deliciously sweet and fresh and fragrant always. Simple in its furniture, but the few needful articles, of as agreeable shapes and as convenient as possible—a room which can be looked back upon with a sort of affection as a place of calm, of discipline, and of organization, as well as of the mere kindness and willingness to help, which is seldom, if ever, absent from a sick-room, but which is not the beginning and end of what is necessary within its walls.

There are bed-rests and bed-tables to be hired for a sick person’s use in almost any town in England; or, if it is preferred, any village carpenter could make a table with legs six or eight inches high, and a top of a couple of smooth light planks, about two feet six long, scooped out in the middle. This is very convenient when the patient is well enough to sit up in bed and employ himself. The bed-rests are equally simple, the upper half of a chair, padded, and made to lower at convenience, while a loose jacket or wrapper, easy to slip on, of flannel, should also be provided to throw over the patient’s shoulders when he uses chair and table. When the patient can sit up and occupy himself this sort of table will be found a great comfort. It might just as well be used when lying on a sofa.