io MORE POT-POURRI 



starvation is a cure for most of the minor ailments of life 

 I agree with you, but I think you are wrong on the 

 subject of nurses. You may get some affection and 

 kindness on the part of a mother, or a sister, or a wife, 

 but I have always held that in really bad cases all three 

 make the worst possible nurses, because so few women 

 can really control their feelings, and where there were 

 great affection and grave anxiety they would be apt to 

 fail in some small details which might be of the utmost 

 importance, where a good trained nurse would not, because 

 she looks on the patient only as a " case," which, if she is 

 a conscientious woman, it is her one object to get well. 

 My experience also does not tally with yours, that the 

 nurse is the tool of the doctor and is bound to approve 

 and agree with him. On the contrary I think many of 

 them, through " a little learning," think they know quite 

 as much as, if not more than, the doctor, and often use 

 their own discretion (?) as to whether they will carry out 

 all the orders given them. If the doctor finds out this 

 and remonstrates, he then makes an enemy of a person 

 who at any time may have an opportunity of doing him 

 much professional injury.' I am quite ready to acknow- 

 ledge the correctness of these remarks, and if the nurse 

 and doctor do not work well together any opposition on 

 the part of the nurse might make the situation very dis- 

 agreeable for the doctor, and vice versa. If, on the other 

 hand, they work extremely well together, the patient may 

 be the sufferer, supposing the doctor were mistaken about 

 the case, which does happen with men of the greatest 

 talent. The too literal carrying-out of the doctor's orders, 

 especially with regard to medicines and sleeping-draughts, 

 is often very injurious to the patient. I did not for a 

 moment mean to imply that love and devotion ' could 

 supply the qualities that are the result of training. But a 

 kind of clear-sightedness and instinct that comes from love 



