(2) The arrangement of a window tent or some other device for insuring the maximum of fresh air for the tuberculous patient both day and night. This device is also useful in pneumonia, typhoid fever, and other diseases, in case they are to be cared for at home and not in a hospital.
(3) The application of simple dressings to wounds, abscesses, and common skin diseases such as eczema, and impetigo.
(4) The care of the skin in bedridden patients. Our primary object here is the prevention of bedsores, those ulcerations which occur in very emaciated patients at the points where their weight presses a bone against the bedclothes.
(5) The simpler procedures for the preparation of milk for sick children and of other foods commonly advised for patients who are confined to bed.
(6) The methods of emptying the lower bowel by means of an enema.
Into the details of these procedures this is not the place to enter, but I wish specially to assert that all of them may be learned within a few weeks by persons who have not studied medicine or had the full course for the training of a nurse. Any one who possesses these simple bits of skill can do all that is necessary for the physical care of the sick poor in their homes, unless continuous attendance upon the patient is necessary. Such attendance is not within the province of the social worker. But in the technical procedures just described it is all the more important that she be expert, because such skill makes her a welcome visitor and a trusted adviser outside the field of medicine. Because she has given relief by dressing a wound, curing a skin disease, or applying a poultice, she will be listened to with liking and with confidence when, later, she comes to give advice in economic, educational, or moral difficulties.
CHAPTER II HISTORY-TAKING BY THE SOCIAL ASSISTANT
History-taking concerns the social assistant especially because history-taking is one of the things one does, if one is wise, in any matter in which one is trying to help a human being. Even if you were concerned to help not a stranger, but a member of your own family, still you would need a story or history of the person's life whether you wrote it down or not.