e say that incomparably the most important office of the
nurse, after she has taken care of the patient's air, is to take care
to observe the effect of his food, and report it to the medical
attendant.

It is quite incalculable the good that would certainly come from such
_sound_ and close observation in this almost neglected branch of
nursing, or the help it would give to the medical man.

[Sidenote: Tea and coffee.]

A great deal too much against tea[24] is said by wise people, and a
great deal too much of tea is given to the sick by foolish people. When
you see the natural and almost universal craving in English sick for
their "tea," you cannot but feel that nature knows what she is about.
But a little tea or coffee restores them quite as much as a great deal,
and a great deal of tea and especially of coffee impairs the little
power of digestion they have. Yet a nurse because she sees how one or
two cups of tea or coffee restores her patient, thinks that three or
four cups will do twice as much. This is not the case at all; it is
however certain that there is nothing yet discovered which is a
substitute to the English patient for his cup of tea; he can take it
when he can take nothing else, and he often can't take anything else if
he has it not. I should be very glad if any of the abusers of tea would
point out what to give to an English patient after a sleepless night,
instead of tea. If you give it at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning, he may
even sometimes fall asleep after it, and get perhaps his only two or
three hours' sleep during the twenty-four. At the same time you never
should give tea or coffee to the sick, as a rule, after 5 o'clock in the
afternoon. Sleeplessness in the early night is from excitement generally
and is increased by tea or coffee; sleeplessness which continues to the
early morning is from exhaustion often, and is relieved by tea. The only
English patients I have ever known refuse tea, have been typhus cases,
and the first sign of their getting better was their craving again for
tea. In general, the dry and dirty tongue always prefers tea to coffee,
and will quite decline milk, unless with tea. Coffee is a better
restorative than tea, but a greater impairer of the digestion. Let the
patient's taste decide. You will say that, in cases of great thirst, the
patient's craving decides that it will drink _a great deal_ of tea, and
that you cannot help it. But in these cases be sure that the patient