Of the professional nurse I will say nothing. You, of course, have put down Mrs. Gamp's address.
A sick-room should, in the first place, be made dark. Light, I have said before, is, in most cases, curative. It is a direct swindling of the doctor when we allow blinds to be pulled up, and so admit into the patient's room medicine for which nobody (except the tax-gatherer) is paid.
A sick-room should, in the next place, be made sad, obtrusively sad. A smile upon the landing must become a sigh when it has passed the patient's door. Our hope is to depress, to dispirit invalids. Cheerful words and gentle laughter, more especially where there is admitted sunshine also, are a moral food much too nutritious for the sick.
The sick-room, in its furniture as well, must have an ominous appearance. The drawers, or a table should be decked with physic bottles. Some have a way of thrusting all the medicine into a cupboard, out of sight, leaving a glass of gayly-colored flowers for the wearied eyes to rest upon: this has arisen obviously from a sanitary crotchet, and is, on no account, to be adopted.
Then we must have the sick-room to be hot, and keep it close. A scentless air, at summer temperature, sanitary people want; a hot, close atmosphere is better suited to our view. Slops and all messes are to be left standing in the room—only put out of sight—and cleared away occasionally; they are not to be removed at once. The chamber also is to be made tidy once a day, and once a week well cleaned: it is not to be kept in order by incessant care, by hourly tidiness, permitting no dirt to collect.
There is an absurd sanitary dictum, which I will but name. It is, that a patient ought to have, if possible, two beds, one for the day, and one for night use; or else two sets of sheets, that, each set being used one day and aired the next, the bed may be kept fresh and wholesome. Suppose our friend were to catch cold in consequence of all this freshness!
No, we do better to avoid fresh air; nor should we vex our patient with much washing. We will not learn to feed the sick, but send their food away when they are unable to understand our clumsiness.
Yet, while we follow our own humor in this code of chamber practice, we will pay tithes of mint and cummin to the men of science. We will ask Monsieur Purgon how many grains of salt go to an egg; and if our patient require twelve turns up and down the room, we will inquire with Argan, whether they are to be measured by its length or breadth.
When we have added to our course some doses of religious horror, we shall have done as much as conscience can demand of us toward filling the grave.
I may append here the remark, that if ever we do resolve to eat our ancestors, there is the plan of a distinguished horticulturist apt for our purpose. Mr. Loudon, I believe it was, who proposed, some years ago, the conversion of the dead into rotation crops—that our grandfathers and grandmothers should be converted into corn and mangel-wurzel. His suggestion was to combine burial with farming operations. A field was to be, during forty years, a place of interment: then the field adjacent was to be taken for that purpose; and so on with others in rotation. A due time having been allowed for the manure in each field to rot, the dead were to be well worked up and gradually disinterred in the form of wheat, or carrots, or potatoes.