Camas

“ Re-making the patient’s bed is our next consideration. If well enough to go into another room, he should either be carried there, or laid on a sofa and wheeled in. As soon as he is out of the way, the window of the sick-room should be thrown open to its widest, and the bed-clothes taken off one by one, well shaken, and left so exposed that the air can circulate freely around them. The mattresses should share the same treatment, and if possible, be left for a few minutes before being replaced. The patient will indeed be peculiar who does not enjoy the refreshment of a bed thus aired. ”

“ We are getting quite used to a life shorn of most of its trappings, except for the two hotel meals a day.
My mattress, on the floor along the very low large window, with two rugs and cushions, and a holdall for a bolster, is as comfortable as any bed, and you don't miss sheets after a day or two. There is one bathroom for 120 or more people, but I get a cold bath every morning early. ”

“ Never keep a patient standing; never speak to one while he is moving. Never lean on the sick-bed, and prevent all noises over-head. Above all, be calm and decisive with the patient.
The sick-bed.—A careful nurse, when a patient leaves his bed, will open the sheets wide, and throw them back, so as to thoroughly air the bed. She will avoid drying or airing anything damp in the sick-room. A small bed, or rather a narrow one, is best for an invalid, for if he has to be moved it is far easier for the nurse to manage it than on a wide one. A hair or wool mattress is better than a feather bed. ”

“ Yet, although we "nose" the murderers, in the musty, unaired, unsunned room, the scarlet fever which is behind the door, or the fever and hospital gangrene which are stalking among the crowded beds of a hospital ward, we say, "It's all right."
With a proper supply of windows, and a proper supply of fuel in open fire-places, fresh air is comparatively easy to secure when your patient or patients are in bed. Never be afraid of open windows then. People don't catch cold in bed. ”

“ As far as my individual experience goes, I have seen an old woman, who had been bed-ridden for years, more comfortably housed and tended beneath a cottage roof, and her room kept more exquisitely clean and sweet than that of many wealthy patients in splendid houses. Of course everything depends on the capacity for organisation and arrangement in the person who has charge of the invalid, but the nurse's task may be made much easier by having to perform it in a bedroom and under conditions which are in accordance with the exigencies of such a time. ”

“ What a relief it is, when suffering with illness, to be transported from a close, dirty cabin to a large room and tidy accommodations! How soothing to a sick man are those thousand little conveniencies and delicacies which only the hand of woman can supply, and from which the sufferer on shipboard is debarred! The well-aired bed linen; the clean and tidy apartment; the flowers placed on the stand opposite the bed; the green jalousies left half open to admit the cooling breeze ”

“ The nurse can thus often have the benefit of the solitude and quiet of her own room and yet be so close to her patients that nothing can escape her notice. A bathroom, also enjoying the sunshine, separates the two wards and can be used by the patients of either. These light, airy, sunny wards with their open fireplaces seem more like the rooms of a pleasant home than the dreary apartments of a hospital. ”

“ An extra room adjoining the sick-room is invaluable to a good nurse, for here, if it be warm weather, she can, when necessary, have a fire, can air linen, wash up any plates, glasses, etc., and do a hundred and one little duties she would otherwise be compelled to perform in the sick-room, thus saving much disturbance to the patient, and keeping the sick-room as it should be kept, free from noise or litter of any sort. ”

“ I took the other cabins, except for the back row of singles, which were occupied, in rotation. I rushed around frantically, the rain beating my face and whipping my hair into my eyes as though it had a personal grudge against me. I was beginning to wish I had awakened Grant so that he could help me close windows, for the beds in several of the cabins were soaked clear through to the mattress pads. ”

“ A great advantage is gained when the invalid can be wheeled or supported into another room, and have a completely changed air and scene in which to take her meal. But when this is impracticable the room should be well aired before the patient is taken out of bed, and as soon as she is established on her couch or in her chair, and this placed as far as possible from the bed, the covers of this should be stripped off and carried from the room. ”

“ Bedroom?—Is not what we want to get into a bedroom, fresh air, the most important thing of all, and sunshine, not merely light, but sunlight? What we want to get out of a bedroom, foul air? An unaired bedroom is a box of foul air. Opening of windows: but windows differ so much in their construction one from the other, that no general rule can be laid down, except that in all cases there must be ventilation near the ceiling; and the Health Missioner must see the kind of window and how it opens, in order to show the best way of airing the room. ”

“ Have no superfluous drapery or hangings at all, and, if possible, have the bed moved into the middle of the room so that there is a passage of air all round and under it. Unless the patient is very weak, or the doctor forbids it, he or she should be sponged all over once a day, every part, even to the feet. ”

“ If it becomes stormy he retires within and closes the window. If the temperature ranges above 100° F. patients should rest in bed or on a couch in the open air, but, if below this, patients may exercise. A steamer chair set inside of a padded, wicker bath chair, from which the seat has been removed, makes a convenient protected arrangement in which a consumptive can pass his time out of doors. If the patient is quite weak and feverish he may remain in bed, or on a couch, placed on a veranda or balcony during the day, and in a room in which all the windows are open at night. ”

“ The Bed.—The best kind of bed for the sick is a small iron bedstead, about 31⁄2 ft. wide and not too high, with firm, level, spring mattress, and light warm covering, avoiding large heavy linen counterpanes, which, though oppressively weighty, give but little heat. It should be placed in such a position as will be most out of draughts, and at the same time convenient for the nurse in performing personal services for the patient. It must never have either side against a wall, nor be between the door and the fire. ”

“ The bed may be of straw, even, and still, if full, fresh, and well-made, be every way sufficient for comfort and health,—better, indeed, than a poor or long-used mattress of any sort;—a mattress of hair, cotton, or wool makes a complete bed. A feather bed is the worst of all. Whatever the bed may be, it should remain open and airing whenever the patient is out of it for any length of time; hence the bed-room should not be the sitting-room when avoidable. ”

“ The single bed, corresponding very much in proportion to our hospital bunks, is the most frequent in this country; and it is very rare that a large double bed is found, except for family use where there are children. ”

“ I catch one glimpse of horizontal whiteness, draw my veil, seize B——’s arm, eventuate at the farther end. Here numerous nasal ebullitions (why will nobody submit to calling the thing snoring, if he himself is the offender?
“All men think all men” snorers “but themselves”)
are exchanged for intimations of equally fabulous sea-sickness, and I find myself safely arrived in the ladies’ cabin, where babies are prevailing to a sleepless extent.
Here my mattress, sheets, counterpane, are utterly ignored or forsworn in a cane-bottomed berth. ”

“ Another great difference between the bed-room and the sick-room is, that the sleeper has a very large balance of fresh air to begin with, when he begins the night, if his room has been open all day as it ought to be; the sick man has not, because all day he has been breathing the air in the same room, and dirtying it by the emanations from himself. Far more care is therefore necessary to keep up a constant change of air in the sick room. ”

“ If a traveller happens to forget some valuable article at his hotel, and hastens back to his chamber about mid-day, he will be rather surprized to find the bed-linen on the floor, nicely sprinkled with water, preparatory to a squeeze under a high-pressure engine, which renders it of a glossy smoothness, and diffuses the watery element so equally, that it feels delightfully cool to the next—and even to the tenth tenant of the caravansera! ”

“ There should be two beds in the room for the use of the patient. These should be, preferably, narrow and so placed in the room that there is a free approach to both sides of the bed, for the convenience of the nurse in giving treatment. Iron bed-steads are preferable to wooden. The bedding should be firm, yet soft and smoothly drawn. There should be just sufficient covering to protect the body. The patient should be changed from one bed to the other daily. This may be done by placing the two beds side by side and carefully moving the patient from one to the other. ”

“ The low bed should be so placed that whilst it would be sheltered from draught (the aid of one or [Pg 100] two screens will be useful here) the light would not fall disagreeably on the patient’s eyes. No rule can be given about light. In some cases the sick person loves to look out of the window all day, whilst in others a ray of light on the face is agony. In such circumstances the bed should, if possible, be so arranged as to allow the light to come from behind, for it is only in rare and exceptional cases that sunshine as well as outer air may not be admitted daily into a sick-room. ”

“ Experience has taught us, however, that it is safe, under proper restrictions, and in uncomplicated confinements, to allow patients to sit up in bed on the 12th and in certain cases on the 10th day, and to get out of bed on the 12th or 14th day. When the patient is allowed to sit up, out of bed, it should not be for longer than one or two hours, and during that time she should sit in a comfortable rocking or Morris chair, which should be placed by the side of the bed. Each day the time can be lengthened, and the distance of the chair from the bed increased. ”

“ Pringle says, the Beds ought to be laid so thin, that a Person unacquainted with the Danger of bad Air, might imagine there was Room for double or triple the Number. In high lofty Apartments, and in Churches, and other large Places, the Beds may be laid much closer together than in Rooms with low Cielings. ”

“ If I were looking out for an example in order to show what not to do, I should take the specimen of an ordinary bed in a private house: a wooden bedstead, two or even three mattresses piled up to above the height of a table; a vallance attached to the frame—nothing but a miracle could ever thoroughly dry or air such a bed and bedding. The patient must inevitably alternate between cold damp after his bed is made, and warm damp before, both saturated with organic matter, [27] and this from the time the mattresses are put under him till the time they are picked to pieces, if this is ever done. ”

“ The room, though it serves them and their two children for kitchen, parlor, and bed room, is the pattern of brightness, cleanliness, and comfort. At supper there were canned raspberries, rolls, butter, tea, venison, and fried rabbit, and at seven I went to bed in a carpeted log room, with a thick feather bed on a mattress, sheets, ruffled pillow slips, and a pile of warm white blankets! I slept for eleven hours. They discourage me much about the route which Governor Hunt has projected for me. They think that it is impassable, owing to snow, and that another storm is brewing. ”

“ This is very convenient when the patient is well enough to sit up in bed and employ himself. The bed-rests are equally simple, the upper half of a chair, padded, and made to lower at convenience, while a loose jacket or wrapper, easy to slip on, of flannel, should also be provided to throw over the patient's shoulders when he uses chair and table. When the patient can sit up and occupy himself this sort of table will be found a great comfort. ”

“ Every patient should sleep with his bedroom window open top and bottom, a screen being arranged, if necessary, to prevent direct draught; and, if possible, occupy a separate bedroom. The patient need not fear going out of doors in any weather, if warmly clad. ”

“ A small table should be placed at the bedside, and on it the bell, food tray, flowers and other small things which promote the comfort of the patient.
The nurse should not sleep with the patient. Sofas and couches are not commonly comfortable enough to secure needed rest. A cot bed is at once convenient and inexpensive, and can be readily folded and put out of sight in the daytime. It can also be used by the patient occasionally, especially during convalescence. ”

“ Supposing then that the laws of ventilation are understood and acted upon, and that certain other sanitary rules are carried out which need not be insisted upon here,—such as that no soiled clothes shall ever, upon any pretence, be kept in a bedroom,—then we come to the next cause of want of freshness in a sleeping-room:—Old walls. People do not half enough realise, though it must be admitted [Pg 5] they understand a great deal more than they once did, how the emanations from the human body are attracted to the sides of the room and stick there. ”