r with a tumbler of hot
water and a rough towel and rubbing, than with a whole apparatus of bath
and soap and sponge, without rubbing. It is quite nonsense to say that
anybody need be dirty. Patients have been kept as clean by these means
on a long voyage, when a basin full of water could not be afforded, and
when they could not be moved out of their berths, as if all the
appurtenances of home had been at hand.

Washing, however, with a large quantity of water has quite other effects
than those of mere cleanliness. The skin absorbs the water and becomes
softer and more perspirable. To wash with soap and soft water is,
therefore, desirable from other points of view than that of cleanliness.

XII. CHATTERING HOPES AND ADVICES.

[Sidenote: Advising the sick.]

The sick man to his advisers.

"My advisers! Their name is legion. * * * Somehow or other, it seems a
provision of the universal destinies, that every man, woman, and child
should consider him, her, or itself privileged especially to advise me.
Why? That is precisely what I want to know." And this is what I have to
say to them. I have been advised to go to every place extant in and out
of England--to take every kind of exercise by every kind of cart,
carriage--yes, and even swing (!) and dumb-bell (!) in existence; to
imbibe every different kind of stimulus that ever has been invented. And
this when those _best_ fitted to know, viz., medical men, after long and
close attendance, had declared any journey out of the question, had
prohibited any kind of motion whatever, had closely laid down the diet
and drink. What would my advisers say, were they the medical attendants,
and I the patient left their advice, and took the casual adviser's? But
the singularity in Legion's mind is this: it never occurs to him that
everybody else is doing the same thing, and that I the patient _must_
perforce say, in sheer self-defence, like Rosalind, "I could not do with
all."

[Sidenote: Chattering hopes the bane of the sick.]

"Chattering Hopes" may seem an odd heading. But I really believe there
is scarcely a greater worry which invalids have to endure than the
incurable hopes of their friends. There is no one practice against which
I can speak more strongly from actual personal experience, wide and
long, of its effects during sickness observed both upon others and upon
myself. I would appeal most seriously to all friends, visitors, and
attendants of the sick to leave of