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SICK, MIRROR AN AID TO THE
The looking-glass, whether a plus or a minus quantity, plays a more important part in the sick-room than most nurses and physicians give it credit for.
“All things considered, I think it a good plan to give a sick person a chance to look at himself occasionally,” said a prominent doctor, recently. “Of course, the indulgence must be granted with discretion. If a patient is really looking seedy, a turn at the looking-glass is equivalent to signing his death warrant; but if taken at a time when braced up by some stimulant or a natural ebullition of vital force, a few minutes of communion with his own visage beats any tonic I can prescribe. It thrills the patient with new hope. It makes him feel that he isn’t quite so far gone as he had thought, and that possibly a fight for life is, after all, worth while. Being thus sensitive, a persistent withholding of a mirror convinces the patient that he must be too horrible for contemplation, and he promptly decides that the best thing for him to do is to give up the ghost and get out of the way.
“That is one of the mistakes hospitals were apt to make up to a few years ago. When I was a young fellow, getting my first practise after graduation, I served on the staff of several hospitals, and in all, especially in the free wards, those aids to vanity were strictly forbidden.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
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Sick-room, Atmosphere of the—See [Talking and Sickness].
SIDE, CHOOSING THE RIGHT
Not many years ago I was asked to go to a Georgia county and speak, and when I got there some saloon-keepers came in and stood up by the wall on one side of me, their object being to intimidate me. I said, “Neighbors, you have sent for me to come and speak to you on the whisky issue. I am no orator; I am no Brutus. I am not going to tell you which side of this question I am on, but you just step up to God and ask which side He is on; go to Christ and put me down on His side. Go out there to the graveyard, and take up that mother who has buried her husband and sons in drunkards’ graves, and ask her which side she is on—and then put me down on her side. Put me down on the side of God and Christ, and the women and children of this land.”
The leading saloon man in the crowd wiped the tears from his eyes. He had just buried a sweet wife and child, and he walked out and said, “Boys, I’m done; I throw up the sponge.” The next election in that county the prohibition element carried the day by five hundred majority.—Sam P. Jones.