Every experienced person, and every liberal physician and medical man, is sensible of the value of a careful, skilful, and kind-hearted nurse, and that the alleviation of sickness and the actual cure of diseases, depend as much on the anxious attention of the nurse, as on the efficacy of medicine itself. Good temper, patience, watchfulness, and sobriety, are the cardinal virtues of every good nurse, and when possessed by one who unites skill with those personal qualities, she is a treasure above all price.
Although the chamber nurse forms no part of the establishment of healthy families, yet as in every family she is a necessary auxiliary for longer or shorter periods, a brief notice of her qualifications and duties, will confer completeness on such a volume as the present.
The chamber or sick nurse should be qualified for her duty by some experience; and if her experience has been considerable, and she is a woman of good understanding, she will prove herself quite as important in the nursery of the sick, as medical practitioners, or all the drugs in an apothecary’s shop. She ought to be past the middle age, and if a married woman or widow, so much the better. She ought to be clean in her person, and neat in her dress, and free from habits of drinking or snuff-taking. She ought also to be a woman of cheerful and equable temper, and, above all things, free from superstition, or belief in charms, omens, signs, dreams, and other follies of gross ignorance.
The sick room should be clean, well aired, and free from noisome smells; and, on the contrary, the air should be purified by sprinkling vinegar or eau de cologne, and occasionally burning a little vinegar in a heated shovel.
Quietness, in every respect, is of the first consequence. Fire irons should be avoided: creaking doors and locks should be oiled; and list shoes constantly worn. Talking loud and whispering, so as to excite the suspicion of the patient, should be equally avoided; and a long feather should be pushed through the key-hole, as a signal on the outside, when the patient is asleep. The nurse should only sleep when the patient sleeps, as one means of preventing the patient being awoke by her frivolous activity.
In cases of contagion, whatever is sent out of the room, should be immersed in water, and the nurse should be careful not to receive the breath of the patient, nor to sit on the bed. She should also carry about her person a bag of camphor, and during such diseases, frequently fumigate the room with vinegar, and indulge occasionally in half a glass of brandy.
The sick chamber should be provided with a lamp and appurtenances, for heating whatever may be wanted; with a tea kettle, two or three saucepans, empty bottles for hot water, (to put to the feet,) some sal volatile and spirits, a bottle of salts, and of eau de cologne; some lambs-wool gloves to rub the patient, a bed-pan, a foot-bath, or a large tin bath; some lemonade, barley-water, and toast and water: oranges, lemons, and empty medicine bottles, which occasion smells that infect the air, should be kept in an adjoining room. There should also be a supply of flannel, old linen, and napkins, for every purpose. Different medicines should be carefully kept apart; lest pernicious ones be given, or proper ones, at improper times. A thermometer in the room is the only means of keeping an equal temperature, or increasing or diminishing it, as the medical attendants may direct.
The reports of the nurse to the physician, and the observations of the physician, should always be made in an adjoining room, and the mind of the patient not be distracted by details of symptoms, and of the nurse’s business. Changes which take place after the visit of the medical attendant, should be immediately reported, and in all that regards the administration of the medicines, and the general system of treatment, the nurse should scrupulously obey the instructions of the medical advisers, not only as the most likely means of promoting the speedy recovery of the patient, but to remove from herself all responsibility and blame. At the same time, she should not withhold her opinion, in regard to the effect of the medicines administered, and in her conferences with the medical advisers, should suggest whatever appears likely to be useful.
Nurses, according to the length of a disease, are paid by the day, week, or month; and as boarders in the family, they ought not to take advantage of the sympathy which induces the relatives of the sick to afford them every indulgence, so as to involve unnecessary or wanton expenses; but consider the interest of the family, whose affliction requires their attendance, as their own. The usual payment of a nurse in London, is from 10s. 6d. to 15s. per week, according to the circumstances of the parties, and of the case.
Nurses who have to compound and administer Family Medicines must be prepared with proper scales and weights; and with graduated glass measures, such as are used by Apothecaries; according to the following