Part 19 (1/2)
”How many did you let her see?” he asked.
”Two dozen!”
”Which would have daunted a well man, madam!” said the wise man. ”Give her _one_ at a time--cold and crisp, upon your best china plate, and tell her that is all she can have for at least an hour. Make her think that her appet.i.te is under restraint. This is in itself a stimulant.”
The hint is valuable.
In administering medicine, be careful to follow the physician's directions as to quant.i.ty and time of taking. Do not prepare the dose in the presence of the patient, as it may make him exceedingly nervous to watch the dropping or pouring of the drug; and after it has been swallowed, put bottle and spoon out of sight.
In too many families there exists sinful ignorance as to what should be done in case of illness before the doctor arrives. If a child comes in from play, hoa.r.s.e and feverish, with nausea and pain in the head, he is often allowed to sit or lie about the house until the disagreeable symptoms become so p.r.o.nounced as to cause alarm, and the physician is summoned. The sufferer should have his feet soaked in hot water, be put to bed, and some anti-febrine like aconite administered until a slight perspiration is induced. Aconite is such deadly poison that the mother must be sure she knows just in what quant.i.ty to give it. The dose for a child from three to six years of age is half a drop in a teaspoonful of water, every hour until the feverishness disappears. Unless serious illness is beginning, the chances are that, under this treatment, the little one will be almost well by the next day.
Mothers would do well to make a study of children's ailments and their proper treatment. Above all, the matter of diet should be comprehended. It is appalling to see the conglomeration of indigestible substances which a sick person is allowed to eat. All children should be trained to take medicine, and to submit to any prescribed dietary without resistance.
To keep up your patient's courage be, or at all events seem, cheerful.
Wise old Solomon, in his day, knew that a merry heart did good like a medicine, and the morsel of wisdom is no less true now than then. Such being the case, bring into the presence of the sufferer a bright face and undisturbed demeanor.
Much may be said on the other side of the question, _i.e._, from the nurse's standpoint. There are patients _and_ patients, and some of them are _im_patients. It is a pity for a sick person to allow himself to so far lose control over his temper and manners as to be disagreeable when all that tender care and nursing can do is his. But really ill people are seldom cross, and the tried nurse may take to heart the comforting thought that one rarely hears of a man dying in a bad humor. It is undoubtedly discouraging to have a patient turn away from a carefully prepared dainty with a shudder of disgust and revulsion. It may sound harsh to say it, but n.o.body, sick or well, has the right to do such an unkind and rude thing. Any one in extreme bodily discomfort cannot be always smiling and uttering thanks, but he can be gentle and appreciative of the efforts that are made toward mitigating his distress. On his own account, as well as for the sake of his attendant, he should keep up a semblance of cheerfulness, the moral force of which is great. On the part of patient and nurse there must be self control and forbearance, which if closely practiced may bring suns.h.i.+ne into the most darkly shaded chamber of suffering.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
A TEMPERANCE TALK.
(_Frank and Personal._)
A correspondent sends me, under cover of a personal letter, this request:
”Will Marion Harland show her hand upon the temperance question? The occasional mention of wine, brandy, etc., in her cookery-books, and her silence upon a subject of such vital moment to humanity, may predispose many to doubt her soundness as to the apostle's injunction to be 'temperate in all things.'”
To clear decks for action, I observe that the text quoted by my catechist contains no ”injunction” but an impersonal statement of the truth that ”Every man that striveth for the mastery” (or in the games) ”is temperate in all things.” The apostle is likening the running and wrestling of the Olympic games to the Christian warfare, and throws in the pregnant reminder that he who is training for race or fight must, as he says elsewhere, ”Keep his body under.” The same rules hold good with the athlete of to-day. While training, he neither drinks strong liquors nor smokes.
The stringency of the regulation, I interject in pa.s.sing, is a powerful argument laid ready to the hand of the advocates of total abstinence. A habit that so far injures the physical powers as to tell upon the action of heart, brains, lungs or muscles, must be an evil to any human being, however healthy.
The Chief Apostle, in another place, admonishes his neophytes to let their ”moderation” be known of all men. The revised version translates the word ”forbearance” or ”gentleness.” We will try to keep both texts in mind during the informal homily that is the outcome of the question put to my surprised self.
”Surprised,” because in the course of thirty-odd years of literary life I have had so many opportunities of ”showing my hand” upon this and other great moral issues, and have improved them so diligently that my readers should by now be tolerably familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, I hope in the course of this paper to disabuse her mind of the impression.
As a means to this end, I wish to put upon record disapproval that amounts to detestation of the practice of drinking anything that, in the words of the old temperance pledge I ”took” when a child, ”will make drunk come.” That was the way it ran. The Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, one of the best known temperance lecturers in America, used to make us stand up in a body and chant it, he keeping time with head and hand, and the boys imitating him.
”We do not think We'll ever drink Brandy or rum, Or anything that makes drunk come”
I have never changed my mind on that head. What I thought then, I _know_ now, that for half a century I have seen what desolation drunkenness has wrought in our land. I never see a boy toss off his ”c.o.c.ktail,” or ”cobbler”, or ”sling,” or by whatever other name the devil's brew is disguised, with the mannish, knowing air that proves him to be as weak as water, when he would have you think him strong as--fusel oil!--that I do not recall the vehement outburst in Mrs. Mulock-Craik's ”A Life for a Life,” of the old clergyman whose only son had filled a drunkard's grave:
”If I had a son, and he liked wine, as a child does, perhaps--a pretty little boy, sitting at table and drinking healths at birthdays; or a schoolboy, proud to do what he sees his father doing--I would take his gla.s.s from him, and fill it with poison--deadly poison--that he might kill himself at once, rather than grow up to be his friends' curse and his own d.a.m.nation--a _drunkard_!”
I lack words in which to express my contempt for the petty ambition, rooted and grounded in vanity, that urges a young fellow to prove the steadiness of his brain by tippling what he does not want, or even like. For not one in fifty of those who take ”nips” and ”coolers,”
cared for the taste of the perilous stuff at the first or twentieth trial. He proved himself a man, one of the stronger parts of creation, by pouring liquid fire down his quailing throat until he could do so without winking. He swears and smokes cigarettes at street corners for the same reason.
”I _love_ a dog!” exclaimed a lively young girl, patting a big St.
Bernard.
”Would I were a dog!” sighed an amorous dude.