the air of the sick constantly dirty in the best private
houses.

The well have a curious habit of forgetting that what is to them but a
trifling inconvenience, to be patiently "put up" with, is to the sick a
source of suffering, delaying recovery, if not actually hastening death.
The well are scarcely ever more than eight hours, at most, in the same
room. Some change they can always make, if only for a few minutes. Even
during the supposed eight hours, they can change their posture or their
position in the room. But the sick man, who never leaves his bed, who
cannot change by any movement of his own his air, or his light, or his
warmth; who cannot obtain quiet, or get out of the smoke, or the smell,
or the dust; he is really poisoned or depressed by what is to you the
merest trifle.

"What can't be cured must be endured," is the very worst and most
dangerous maxim for a nurse which ever was made. Patience and
resignation in her are but other words for carelessness or
indifference--contemptible, if in regard to herself; culpable, if in
regard to her sick.

XI. PERSONAL CLEANLINESS.

[Sidenote: Poisoning by the skin.]

In almost all diseases, the function of the skin is, more or less,
disordered; and in many most important diseases nature relieves herself
almost entirely by the skin. This is particularly the case with
children. But the excretion, which comes from the skin, is left there,
unless removed by washing or by the clothes. Every nurse should keep
this fact constantly in mind,--for, if she allow her sick to remain
unwashed, or their clothing to remain on them after being saturated with
perspiration or other excretion, she is interfering injuriously with the
natural processes of health just as effectually as if she were to give
the patient a dose of slow poison by the mouth. Poisoning by the skin is
no less certain than poisoning by the mouth--only it is slower in its
operation.

[Sidenote: Ventilation and skin-cleanliness equally essential.]

The amount of relief and comfort experienced by sick after the skin has
been carefully washed and dried, is one of the commonest observations
made at a sick bed. But it must not be forgotten that the comfort and
relief so obtained are not all. They are, in fact, nothing more than a
sign that the vital powers have been relieved by removing something that
was oppressing them. The nurse, therefore, must never put off attending
to the personal cleanliness of he