Families worn down with the long and extreme illness of a member require
relief from one whose feelings will be less taxed, and who can better
endure the labor.
"But alas! how often is it impossible, for love or money, to obtain
one capable of taking the burden from the exhausted sister or mother
or daughter, and how often in consequence they have died prematurely
or struggled through weary years with a broken constitution. Appeal
to those who have made the trial, and you will find that very seldom
have they been able to have those who by nature or by training were
competent for their duties. Ignorant, unscrupulous, inattentive--how
often they disturb and injure the patient! A physician told me that
one of his patients had died because the nurse, contrary to orders,
had at a critical period washed her with cold water. I have known one
who, by stealth, quieted a fretful child with laudanum, and of others
who exhausted the sick by incessant talking. One lady said that when,
to escape this distressing garrulity, she closed her eyes, the nurse
exclaimed aloud, 'Why, she is going to sleep while I am talking to
her.
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