rest. To lie abed
half the day, and sew a little and read a little, and be interesting as
invalids and excite sympathy, is all very well, but when they are bidden
to stay in bed a month, and neither to read, write, nor sew, and to have
one nurse, who is not a relative,--then repose becomes for some women a
rather bitter medicine, and they are glad enough to accept the order to
rise and go about when the doctor issues a mandate which has become
pleasantly welcome and eagerly looked for. I do not think it easy to
make a mistake in this matter unless the woman takes with morbid delight
to the system of enforced rest, and unless the doctor is a person of
feeble will. I have never met myself with any serious trouble about
getting out of bed any woman for whom I thought rest needful, but it has
happened to others, and the man who resolves to send any nervous woman
to bed must be quite sure that she will obey him when the time comes for
her to get up.

I have, of course, made use of every grade of rest for my patients, from
repose on a lounge for some hours a day up to entire rest in bed. In
milder forms of neurasthenic disease, in cases of slight general
depression not properly to be called melancholias, in the lesser grades
of pure brain-tire, or where this is combined with some physical
debility, I often order a "modified" or "partial rest." A detailed
schedule of the day is ordered for such patients, with as much
minuteness of care as for those undergoing "full rest" in bed. Here the
patient's or the household's usual hours may be consulted, a definite
amount of time allotted to duties, business, and exercise, and certain
hours left blank, to be filled, within limits, at the patient's
discretion or that of the nurse.

So many nervous people are worried with indecision, with inability to
make up their minds to the simplest actions, that to have the
responsibility of choice taken away greatly lessens their burdens. It
lessens, too, the burdens which may be placed upon them by outside
action if they can refuse this or that because they are under orders as
to hours.

The following is a skeleton form of such a schedule. The hours, the
food, the occupations suggested in each one will vary according to the
sex, age, position, desires, intelligence, and opportunities of the
patient.

7.30 A.M. Cocoa, coffee, hot milk, beef-extract, or hot water. Bath
(temperature stated). Rough rub with towel or flesh-brush: bathing and
rub