lo MORE POT-POURRI 



had been a good deal discussed in periodicals just before 

 the book came out. 



An old friend, a doctor, wrote: 'Your chapter on 

 health I take some exception to. On the question that 

 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 con- 

 trary, I think many of them, through "a little learn- 

 ing," 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 acknowledge the correct- 

 ness 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 disagreeable 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, 



