Various

“ Peggy clapped her bandaged hands together, and laughed aloud with tears of pain streaming down her face. “Arthur Saville, V.C., Arthur Saville, V.C.,” she cried, and then fell to groaning because some days must still elapse before the medical examination was over, and her hero was set free to hasten to her side.
“And I shall be back at the vicarage then, and we shall all be together! Oh, let us be joyful! How happy I am! What a nice old world it is, after all,” she continued hilariously, while Rosalind gazed at her with reproachful eyes. ”

“ Roy broke into a queer hard sound, not far removed from a sob, though he tried to turn it into a laugh; and he kissed and kissed again the top of Molly’s head. Her face was out of reach, buried in his rough coat. Then Polly pulled one of Molly’s hands, trying to wrench asunder that frantic hold.
“Dear Molly, you must not. Roy must be tired and hungry. Try to think of that. He wants food. And he has not said one word to me yet.” Polly dashed aside her tears, trying to smile. “How did you get away from Verdun, Roy?” ”

“ Beautiful she must always be, with her faultless features and wonderful eyes, but the bloom and radiance of colour which had been her chief charm had disappeared, for the time being, as completely as though they had never existed.
“I’ll love you more,” said Peggy reassuringly. “You are ever so much nicer, and you will be as pretty as ever when your hair grows, and the marks fade away. ”

“ Why, you have it in your power to give me the greatest reward that was ever bestowed on medical man!” Then, tenderly taking her hand in his: “Won’t you give it me, my darling? It is yourself I want.”
Trembling all over, Marielle essayed to answer, but words would not come. Instead she pressed the hand that held her own, and looked up with a face like an April day, half smiles, half tears.
Magnus Duncan read her reply aright, and strained her to his heart.
“Ah!” said Marielle archly, a little later on, “you say it is your greatest reward, but”—gravely—“I had a far greater still—once.” ”

“ Galva.—That electricity has proved of great use in the treatment of disease is unquestionable, though it is quite as certain that it has opened a way to quacks and other swindlers of fleecing invalids and others, and in this way it has proved a great enemy to medicine. As regards its uses in medicine, it has given us the electro-cautery, electrolysis, the portable electric light—a most valuable addition to our consulting-rooms—and it has given us the electric currents so much used in the treatment of nervous diseases. No person should start practising on herself with the electric current. ”

“ She did not realise that when the Angel of Death has hovered over a household, and has at last flown away with empty arms, leaving the home untouched, they would be hard hearts that were not touched, ungrateful natures that did not take thought of themselves, and face life with a higher outlook! Lady Darcy’s social disappointments seemed light compared with the awful “might have been”; while Rosalind’s lamentations over her disfigurement had died away at the sight of Peggy’s unconscious form. ”

“ The other shades don’t match at all, and it looks simply vile. I am going to give it to—ahem! I mean that’s the sort of thing that always happens to me—it makes me mad! You can’t sew at all, I suppose. What do you do with yourself all day long now that you are able to get up?”
Peggy’s eyes twinkled.
“I sleep,” she said slowly, “and eat, and sleep a little more, and eat again, and talk a little bit, roll into bed, and fall fast asleep. Voilà tout, ma chère! C’est ça que je fais tous les jours.”
Rosalind gave a shriek of laughter at Peggy’s French, and Mellicent rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ”

“ The going-away gown at all the recent smart weddings seems to have been invariably made of cloth; roan-colour, petunia, light grey, turquoise blue, dark and light mauve, and heliotrope are all colours that have been seen at recent marriages in good society. The first-named was lined with a shot-blue glacé silk, and was made with a bodice which had a full vest of cream-coloured lace and revers of dark blue velvet. The dress of petunia cloth had a coat of petunia velvet, slashed with mauve; and as a rule gowns of pale grey are trimmed with grey velvet of a darker shade, with a hat to match. ”

“ When a person is bleeding from a deep wound, press the lips of the wound together. Not the edges only—this is no good. Press the complete thickness of the lips of the wound together. If you cannot do this, stuff your handkerchief into the wound and press on that.
A not uncommon cause of bleeding to death is rupture of a varicose vein. Hundreds of thousands of women have varicose veins, but in very few do the veins rupture. Still, if a vein does get torn and the patient does not know what to do, her life will be lost while seeking assistance. ”

“ You must not touch the table or the chair, and you must not touch your handkerchief or anything else, while you are dressing a wound. Microbes lurk everywhere except in the carbolic acid, and in the dressings, if they are clean. And if you are careful, you can prevent any germs from getting into the wound; and this is the most important thing in surgery. Do not let the dressings touch the table. Deposit them carefully on a clean towel, which you have previously wrung out with the carbolic solution, and laid upon the table. ”

“ A tear splashed on Molly’s cheek, and she looked up with startled eyes.
“Ah—I have forgot! If Denham could but have come with Roy! Then we should both be happy; we should want nothing. Except my papa and my mamma to return.”
Another tear fell.
“But we will ask Roy, and he will tell us about Denham. Perhaps he will bring you a message from him.”
“No,” Polly answered. “Roy comes from Bitche—not from Verdun. Did you not hear? ’Tis long since he saw them. And, Molly, you must not ask.” ”

“ Fomentations have taken the place of poultices in modern surgery. Never put a poultice of any kind near an open wound. All your care and cleanliness will go for nothing if you do.
To make fomentations take a square of lint and fold it twice. Then wring it out in boiling carbolic solution (1 in 80) and apply it as hot as it can be borne. Cover it with a square of oiled silk, put on a thick layer of wool, and bandage. Fomentations should be renewed three or four times a day.
When treating a wound, never use sticking-plaster except to keep on a dressing. ”

“ I hear that in Paris the popular gown for the early spring for ordinary wear will be black serge; this is made as a coat or Directoire coat bodice, braided or not as is preferred, in fact made in any way that seems suitable to everyday use. The best gown as I have said is of some light-hued cloth, and for best summer wear the thin grenadines over silk are most fashionable as well as the most useful of dresses. ”

“ Sticking-plaster must never be placed on a wound, and above all it must not cover the wound. If it does so, it will keep the discharge locked up under it. The discharge will decompose, and a very serious state of affairs may intervene. Free drainage is essential in all wounds, and if this is interfered with, the wounds will go wrong.
What have we to put in our box for the treatment of wounds? The following—
Carbolic acid solution, powdered boracic acid, sal alembroth gauze, surgeon’s lint, absorbent cotton wool, oiled silk, bandages, pair of scissors, syringe (glass) . ”

“ But if the nearest surgeon is two or three hundred miles away, keep up the pressure and get someone else to put on a bandage pressing very tightly upon a pad, which in its turn presses upon the bleeding vessel.
In the case of a varicose vein or a small artery, this treatment will probably prove successful.
Whenever you cut yourself, the raw surface bleeds more or less. You can stop this kind of bleeding either by pressure, or by hot water. There is never anything to be alarmed at when blood oozes out from a wound, even though a considerable quantity of blood be lost. ”

“ The “electropathic belts,” rings, stockings, boots, hats, ties, stays, etc., etc., either produce no electric current at all, or else they give so little electricity that it avails nothing. To take a concrete example:—if it requires a strength of current corresponding to the size of our earth in magnitude to pierce the human skin and be felt by the patient, the strength of current given out by an electric belt would be compared with a grain of sand in magnitude. That is, the current is many thousands of times too weak to be of any good. ”

“ The “tunic” drapery is the new note of all the spring skirts, and really so tight-fitting are all of them, that we wonder how we are going to sit down! In Paris this form of trimming has been most popular, and there the blouse and skirt are arranged so as to look exactly like a polonaise.
The new toques are larger than those of last year, and much wider. They generally should match the colour of the gown with which they are worn. The trimmings are put on both in front and on the left side, and consist of ostrich tips, chou bows, or rosettes. ”

“ The toque is a very pretty one of a grey shade to match the gown; and is of velvet, ornamented with a wreath of green leaves and an arrangement of white wings.
It is sometimes useful to know how to make a tea-gown for a young lady which will be useful and pretty, and youthful enough in its style for the years of its wearer. The tea-gown illustrated is of black silk, and is cut very plainly. It opens over a skirt of white satin, with a vest of the same. ”

“ We must therefore tell you how to sterilise needles, scissors, etc. You are usually told to sterilise instruments by passing them through a flame. Now this has many disadvantages. In the first place, merely passing a knife through a flame does not even warm it. Then, if you leave it in the flame long enough, you spoil its temper and make it dirty with soot.
By far the best way to sterilise instruments is to boil them. Sterilise your needles, etc., by boiling them in solution of carbolic acid in a test-tube.
To treat burns, what must we add to our chest? Boracic acid ointment, that is all. ”

“ We advise people not to marry only when they have a disease which is sure to kill them shortly; or a disease in which married life is dangerous, or where the disease is strongly hereditary and the children would probably suffer from it.
Anxious One.—Your question is an exceedingly delicate one, and one on which you would do well not to take our opinion alone, but to supplement it with that of other medical men. Epilepsy is a very serious disease, it is rarely possible to cure it, and, moreover, it is strongly hereditary. ”

“ The months she dreamed of spending abroad would not only increase her mental stores, but send her back with enlarged and quickening powers to her pupils. “Where,” she debated, “does one’s duty to one’s higher nature leave off and that to one’s neighbour begin? Shall I not be a more useful member of society if I go abroad, and ought I not to consider my work first?” ”

“ Swathe thickly in cotton wool and put on a clean bandage.
There is no need to again dress the wound, unless it becomes hot and painful. If you have got the wound absolutely clean, when the dressings have been on for a few days, it will have completely healed without discharging more than a few drops of fluid. If, however, the wound smarts, it must be dressed again, and possibly every other day. It should be dressed in the same way as it was in the first instance.
When the wound is very jagged, or impossible to get thoroughly clean, it is best to put on fomentations for the first day or two. ”

“ But no amateur ever is certain of perfect cleanliness. And we fail to see the advantage of pricking the blister after all.
Suppose the needle you use is dirty, just see what a state of things may occur. Your needle is dirty—it is swarming with germs. You prick the blister with it—that is, you introduce into a cavity filled with warm solution of albumen the organisms of putrefaction. This is just what the microbes like, and they will rapidly render the contents of the blister putrid. And now neither the microbes nor the matter can escape, for the prick has long ago become obliterated. ”

“ She handled her treasures tenderly, and with her handkerchief wiped an imaginary speck of dust from Savonarola’s medallion. As she did so she wondered whether the great ascetic would have thought this dream of hers a “vanity” too. Very lightly did culture weigh in his mind. ”

“ This is coming it too strong! We know tincture of arnica, and we know that some people have an idea that it does something or other to relieve bruises—an idea which we do not share. But to say it removes all effects of injuries, bruises (we should have thought that these might have been included under the former term) , and inflammations—well, we live and learn.
There were five other bottles in this drawer. And then there was a pair of scissors. What can they be for? But then we found a roll of sticking plaster, and the mystery was cleared up at once. ”

“ You do not want a medicine chest to contain everything you may require. You want it to contain everything that is absolutely necessary for emergencies. There are practically three classes of emergencies—injuries, acute poisoning, and acute disease.
The surgical part of the box is far more important than the medical part. Let us talk about injuries first. Bleeding requires instantaneous treatment. If a person wounds a big vessel, she may bleed to death in half a minute or less. So you must act at once if you wish to be of any value. ”

“ Most certainly an epileptic should not marry if he still has fits. It is only in those cases where the patients have not had fits for some years that the question of their marrying can be considered. In the case you mention to us, we advise you to make perfectly certain that the disease is epilepsy. There are some diseases which produce symptoms not unlike those of some forms of epilepsy, and the diagnosis between them is often impossible without watching the case for some weeks or months. ”

“ You ought to be thankful for good wholesome food!’
“‘Milk puddings are not wholesome. They don’t agree with us—they are too rich! We should like something a little lighter for a change. Will you swear off milk puddings for the next fortnight if I let you down?’
“‘You are a cruel, heartless fellow, Robert Darcy—thinking of puddings when Peggy is ill, and we are all so anxious about her!’
“‘Peggy would die at once if she heard how badly you were treating us. ”

“ Our advice is first to make certain what is the matter with the man, and if this proves to be epilepsy, it is better for both to break off your engagement. But do not do so without obtaining the opinion of another physician.
Boreas.—This year give your chief thoughts to the prevention of chilblains, and save yourself from the trouble and pain of last year’s experiences. Persons subject to chilblains should wear warm woollen stockings. Let the boots be amply large. If you cramp your feet in small boots it is almost impossible to keep them warm. ”

“ Oh, but when you cut open the blister, do you not let the germs in? Yes, you do, unless you have been scrupulously careful that everything you used was perfectly clean. But even if you have introduced germs, it is not so very serious here, for you apply the ointment directly to the raw surface. So now the microbes get the worst of it. There is nothing for them to eat; there is nothing preventing them from getting away ”