Ironing-tables: Make board or table suit your height, so you need neither stoop at the work nor hunch your shoulders. Set a table too low upon bricks or blocks—if it is too high, have something stable to stand on. Make tight-fitting covers for the table of unbleached muslin, sewed double at one end, to be slipped over the table edge, and with the other end long enough to lap over and safety-pin firmly in place. Have a double blanket under the cover, laid very smooth.
In using a board, set it high or low, as your height requires.
As to Soaking: Long soaking of clothes is undesirable—it loosens dirt but passes it throughout the fabric. An hour is sufficient. Cover things that must stand overnight with cold water rather than hot. Nursery wash in need of soaking must be kept to itself. So should things from a sickroom that are badly fouled.
As to Boiling: Boiling is not absolutely essential to clean clothes, still a means of grace toward them. Have separate boiling-bags for table linen, for handkerchiefs, for fine things like caps and collars. In boilers the best is the costliest—namely, copper. Next ranks the cheapest—a deep iron pot. Copper-bottomed tin answers with good usage. Iron pots will crack if allowed to get very hot before water is put in. Any boiler should have at least an inch of water in it before going over the fire. Likewise it must be kept clean, dry, and wash-worthy by constant vigilance for holes and cracks.
Irons: Test by pressing your cheek against the face—if rough, reject. Five to six pounds is a good weight. Half a dozen will be none too many. Keep clean and dry. Beware of setting them face down upon live coals or red-hot iron—heat pits them microscopically, but enough to make them stick. Polishing-irons are somewhat lighter and rather different in shape. Have an asbestos pad or wire trivet to set irons on. Have several holders, if you lack a patent handle, and shift as they grow hot.
A Sickroom: Disfurnish of every unessential. Leave nothing that can be knocked off or over, or that clatters or rattles. Remove rugs from a bare floor, but keep a small one handy for the patient’s feet. Cover a carpet with a smooth sheet of something washable. In case of contagion take away draperies and pictures. Have the bedstead light and firm-standing, not too low, single or of three-quarter size. Set it so there is free passage all round it, but not so light glares into sick eyes. Place the head at least six inches from the wall, and set beside it a small solid table. A couch or single bed, a spacious dresser, a bigger table, and at most three chairs are complete equipment. Give up the dresser to the patient’s clothes, bed clothes, towels, table covers, and so forth. Have three changes of clothes, a dressing-gown, a light shawl, slippers, many clean handkerchiefs. A dressing-room attached is a godsend—next to it a bathroom easily reached. Lacking either, a washstand fully furnished is necessary, also an alcohol or oil stove for hot water.
Toilet ware of white enamel is lighter and safer than china. Have in addition a foot tub and a deep covered bucket. Soaps, powder, scents at discretion—insist, though, upon clean wash clothes, a good sponge, also bottles of grain alcohol, aromatic ammonia, lavender water, and camphor. Insist also upon a demi-john of disinfectant solution—chloride-of-lime for ordinary illness, bichloride of mercury in cases of contagion (see section Disinfectants).
A Sickbed: Should have a good spring and a light, elastic mattress. Lay upon the mattress a pad of cotton tacked between cheesecloth, and change it daily. The mattress should have a white cover. Over the pad stretch smooth a sheet big enough to tuck in all round and be fastened underneath with safety pins. Pin the upper sheet only across the bottom, and lay a fold three inches wide in it there, to save cramping the toes. Do the same with the blankets. They should be light, not heavy. Down or puffy cotton comforts should supply extra warmth at need. Lay blankets so the upper edge will come a foot below the headboard. The sheet must be turned over them half a foot at least and be met by an outer spread light and smooth. Have a bolster rather hard, and three pillows of varying softness. Change slips daily. Change sheets likewise, save in desperate cases where the patient cannot bear moving. Space permitting, such cases should have two beds, fitted alike. Shifting can be done by setting them together and easing the sufferer on the fresh couch.
Heat and Ventilation: Open fires help mightily toward keeping a sickroom fresh. Burn wood that does not snap nor give out any pungent smell. Coal should be free-burning. Put it in small paper bags—thus it can be laid in the grate without noise or dust. Dampen ashes before removing, and keep hearth and fixtures clean by a daily washing. Keep the heat steady—the temperature that is ordered. Where there is distress of breathing, keep a clean kettle simmering on the fire, the spout turned outward—vapor softens air. Furnace heat coming through a floor register should be softened by setting on the register a small pan of water. With a wall register, fasten in front of it a big sponge, and wet it every hour or so. Radiators should have water on top, in something wide and shallow.
If windows must be opened at top, set an extra shade at the bottom with a hook to hold it in the middle of the upper casing. Roll up the top shade, lower the sash sufficiently, then raise the lower shade till the edge is level with the edge of the sash. Thus air has free ingress without rattling the upper shade. A window which must be raised ought to have a light board pivoted into the casing, so it can be turned outward at need, letting in air but preventing draughts. With a board a foot wide raise the window about ten inches. One window open at top, another at bottom will be far more effectual than a single window spread wide. Note what is outside; if at any time smoke or the smell of food comes in, shut the window. Allow no odors in a sickroom—neither fruit, flowers, spiced food, nor scented visitors. This in severe cases; mild ones and convalescence demand no such rigors.