The nursing and care of the nervous and the insane / By Charles K. Mills.

  • Mills, Charles K. (Charles Karsner), 1845-1931.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nursing and care of the nervous and the insane / By Charles K. Mills. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    14/156 (page 12)
    seclusion from all but physicians and attendants ; and, confined to their rooms for weeks or months, almost isolated from the rest of the world, their care demands high qualities and qualifications in the companion and care-taker. Let me here quote the words of one1 whose wide ex- perience entitles him before all others to speak as to the trials and qualifications of those to whom fall the care of the nervously sick : A life spent beside such a sick-bed is indeed a test alike of character and health. It requires a strong body and a fortunate balance of moral and intellectual qualities to escape from being made morbid by constant contact with such suffering; and intensely sympathetic people are surely hurt by it, and themselves grow mor- bidly sensitive. Where the unhappy invalid becomes exquisitely ill-tempered under the long pangs of illness, the constant nurse must endure a thousand petty trials of temper, and must know when to yield and when to resist the tiny and numberless oppressions of her sick tyrant; but incessant battle with one's self is exhaust- ing, and soon begins to show its results upon the health- iest nurse, cooped up in the sick-room. A pallid face, loss of energy, a certain passive obedience to routine duties are the sure consequences. AVhile the fundamental qualifications for a good nurse for nervous patients are those for a good nurse of any description, it is important that she should have a few special qualities, and should be free from a few particular