is 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 her patient under the plea that all that
is to be gained is a little relief, which can be quite as well given
later.

In all well-regulated hospitals this ought to be, and generally is,
attended to. But it is very generally neglected with private sick.

Just as it is necessary to renew the air round a sick person frequently,
to carry off morbid effluvia from the lungs and skin, by maintaining
free ventilation, so is it necessary to keep the pores of the skin free
from all obstructing excretions. The object, both of ventilation and of
skin-cleanliness, is pretty much the same,--to wit, removing noxious
matter from the system as rapidly as possible.

Care should be taken in all these operations of sponging, washing, and
cleansing the skin, not to expose too great a surface at once, so as to
check the perspiration, which would renew the evil in another form.

The various ways of washing the sick need not here be specified,--the
less so as the doctors ought to say which is to be used.

In several forms of diarrhoea, dysentery, &c., where the skin is hard
and harsh, the relief afforded by washing with a great deal of soft soap
is incalculable. In other cases, sponging with tepid soap and water,
then with tepid water and drying with a hot towel will be ordered.

Every nurse ought to be careful to wash her hands very frequently during
the day. If her face too, so much the better.

One word as to cleanliness merely as cleanliness.

[Sidenote: Steaming and rubbing the ski