ight of plate; fork, tines up, to
the left of plate.

5. Spoons, bowls up, next to the knife.

6. Napkin on the lower left side of tray, open edges to the lower
right side.

7. Bread and butter plate on top of napkin.

8. Soup tureen in lower right corner, with cup and saucer above it.

9. Tea or coffee pot and hot water pot in upper right-hand corner of
tray, with sugar bowl next to hot pot and cream pitcher next to sugar
bowl.

10. Place salt and pepper next to cream pitcher (to the left).

11. Water glass in upper right corner of tray.

12. Second vegetable dish placed on the upper right side of dinner
plate.

13. Place dessert to the upper left of dinner plate.

~Suggestions for Serving.~--Make tray as attractive as possible.

In the cases requiring special diets, the nurse should make out the
"diet sheet" for the day. In hospitals this is passed to the
dietitian, who carries out the directions laid down by the physician.
The nurse, however, should carefully check the tray before serving it,
since mistakes sometimes occur, and to give the wrong food to a
patient suffering from certain disorders may give rise to serious
trouble, causing pain and discomfort and at times death.

~Contamination of Food.~--Food should always be protected from dirt
and dust and from contamination and pollution from flies and other
insects. Typhoid fever and certain intestinal disturbances have been
known to result from flies coming in contact with raw food--milk, for
example. Poisoning due to polluted water used to freshen vegetables
has already been spoken of. All of these types of poisoning may be
avoided by using care in the handling of the fresh foods. ~Ptomaines~,
however, are not easy to prevent. Their source cannot always be traced
to one particular article of diet. They may be present in cooked, raw,
frozen, or canned foods. At times the evidence of extreme
decomposition will be found in the foods themselves, while at other
times there will be no such evidence in the food, but the result of
the ptomaine will be perfectly evident whenever certain individuals
partake of that food. This is a personal idiosyncrasy which it is
impossible to account for.

~Food Poisoning.~--Poison caused by decomposed eggs has manifested
itself in individuals who have partaken of cake in which such eggs
were used. Canned meat and fish have produced the most violent types
of ptomaine poisoning. As a rule in these cases the canned article