Patient

“ The doctor sat down opposite me and said: "You weep, Mademoiselle, and perhaps the word 'saved,' seems to you only as a bitter mockery, when coupled with the name of a patient whose life was despaired of before this last illness seized him. But it is just on this illness that I found my hope of saving him. Nature has risked a bold experiment and has succeeded. ”

“ DOCTOR.—The relation between a patient and his disease is the same as that which obtains between the two wooden weather-prophets of a Dutch clock. When the disease goes off, the patient goes on; when the disease goes on, the patient goes off. ”

“ Your patient has no more right to all the truth you know than he has to all the medicine in your saddlebags, if you carry that kind of cartridge-box for the ammunition that slays disease. He should get only just so much as is good for him. I have seen a physician examining a patient's chest stop all at once, as he brought out a particular sound with a tap on the collarbone, in the attitude of a pointer who has just come on the scent or sight of a woodcock. ”

“ How does your patient, doctor?
DOCTOR.
Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest. ”

“ Four physicians have quarrelled in consultation over the nature of their patient's malady, and the proper mode of administering to his relief. Unable to convince one another, they wax so warm in argument that they speedily proceed from words to blows. ”

“ As the sick man, in all the way through the mountain-pass, was encouraged by his friend, so should the physician cheer his patient with his hopeful voice and manner, amid all the gloom and peril of the journey of sickness ”

“ At first the patient is filled with a vague longing after things too high for him. He gazes at them with a fixed stare; the pupils expand. But he cannot see distinctly; crooked ways seem straight; the shortest curve he thinks is a right angle; dirty things look clean, and he lays hold of them without perceiving their condition. ”

“ There is a singular sagacity very often shown in a patient's estimate of his own vital force. His physician knows the state of his material frame well enough, perhaps,—that this or that organ is more or less impaired or disintegrated; but the patient has a sense that he can hold out so much longer,—sometimes that he must and will live for a while, though by the logic of disease he ought to die without any delay. ”

“ LIFE is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate. ”

“ The patient does not prescribe nor tell the doctor what he wants of him,—that is, supposing the doctor to be what he ought to be. He examines the patient, knows the nature of the disease, and prescribes accordingly. The patient takes the medicine, and asks no questions for conscience sake. ”

“ The doctor's earnestness inspires confidence, and the patient unburdens his secret troubles, discusses means of remedying them, and turns from pain to promise, from remorse to resolve, from introspection to action, from dreading to doing. ”

“ A certain physician was so fond of administering medicine, that, seeing all the phials and pill-boxes of his patient completely emptied, and ranged in order on the table, he said, "Ah, sir, it gives me pleasure to attend you,—you deserve to be ill." ”

“ When the physician discovers certain signs or symptoms which constitute the diagnosis of any disease, he regards those signs as the effects of a disease already in existence, and treats the patient accordingly. ”

“ To some physicians a patient will present only conventional symptoms, while a follow practitioner will discover the elements of an interesting case. Above all, the painstaking physician, interested in psychology, will find mental and other personal manifestations in his patient that distinctly modify the course of the disease. We must know all that is possible about the patient's attitude of mind toward his malady, and all the ideas that he has acquired with regard to it, either from previous relations with physicians or from what he may have read or heard from others. ”

“ That he ought to be called to the sense of duty, and is flying in the face of Providence;—then know that your patient is receiving all the injury that he can receive from a visitor.
How little the real sufferings of illness are known or understood. How little does any one in good health fancy him or even herself into the life of a sick person. ”

“ Care of a chronic patient has for its aims maintaining the patient's health, rendering him as happy and comfortable in mind and body as it is possible for him to be, and providing whatever special treatment and attention his case requires. ”

“ Day by day he indoctrinates the patient into some stray medical notion, giving him an interest in his own anatomy, and putting him on terms of familiar acquaintance with the formation of his heart or his stomach. ”

“ What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies. ”

“ He enters the dwelling of the sick as if he were one of the family, and the very office that he is to perform disarms all formality, and pre-supposes intercourse of the most familiar character. The patient is to speak to him not of a foreign subject, nor of some one else, but of himself, of his own body, of its pains and ailments, and that too with sufficient minuteness to communicate an adequate knowledge of his case. ”

“ The patient takes no interest in the morbid symptoms of his physician: but every patient is eager to discuss his symptoms with the kindly physician who will listen to them free, gratis and for nothing. ”

“ A patient comes to you with asthma and wants to know where he can breathe; another comes to you with phthisis and wants to know where he can live. What boy's play is nine tenths of all that is taught in many a pretentious course of lectures, compared with what an accurate and extensive knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of different residences in these and other complaints would be to a practising physician. ”

“ PHYSICIANS' TREATMENT for Nervous Prostration.—The patient must be assured and made to believe that the disease is curable, but that it will take time and earnest help on the part of the patient. Much medicine is not needed, only enough to keep the system working well. Encouragement is what is needed from attendants. Remove the patient from the causes that produce the trouble, whether it be business, worry, over-study, too much social duties, or excesses of any kind. The patient must have confidence in the physician, and he must be attentive to the complaints of the patient. ”

“ The physician explained that his patient was in a critical condition, that absolute rest and quiet were essential for his welfare, and that in no circumstances could he be moved before thirty days—or perhaps longer. ”

“ It was a patient. It MUST be a patient! Then first I realised what an entirely different thing it is to treat the patient of another man (as I had done with Horton) or to work a branch of another man's practice (as I had done with Cullingworth) , and to have to do with a complete stranger on your own account. ”

“ Wanting to know more about a patient than how a patient was constructed or deranged couldn't be, even on the part of the greatest of doctors, anything but some form or other of the desire to let the patient down easily. ”

“ Whenever you approach me, my friend, I can never help receiving you with a 'Thank Heaven!' You are one of those whose very presence is beneficial to the sufferer, as the physician's entrance often suffices to soothe the patient without medicines. ”

“ The patient often feels, and takes comfort in feeling, that his temporary outbursts of fretfulness and impatience are understood by his friends, as having no consonance with the real feelings of his heart. A much respected patient, of whose sickness I have many pleasant recollections, was one day speaking to me of his sister in the highest terms of eulogy. ”

“ We can treat many chronic diseases as successfully without as with a personal consultation, as our vast experience enables us to correctly determine the malady from which the patient is suffering, from a history of the symptoms, and answers to questions furnished. We have not seen one person in five hundred of those whom we have cured. ”

“ Often the physician finds that his patient has been to someone else, who did some simple thing that brought relief of symptoms, at least for a time, and restored his confidence to such a degree that he felt much better for a time at least. These ailments are emphasized by advancing years and, though we cannot prevent decay of tissue, we can keep the patient's mind from inhibiting still further the functions of the impaired tissue. ”

“ It is hardly surprising that the process of rationalisation should often centre round the relation of the patient to medicine, the social institution which has to do with disease. In searching for something by means of which to explain his troubles, the patient is apt to fix upon the advice and measures given or recommended by his physician or physicians. ”

“ We shall not advise treatment for these more grave disorders which should always, for the safety of the patient, be attended by the family physician, except to recommend some simple means which may be employed in the initial stage of the disease, or when a physician's services cannot be promptly secured. ”

“ In the meantime secure the best physician within your reach, and follow his directions carefully, be calm and self- possessed when in the presence of the patient, for you must remember that he has full possession of his mental faculties and will notice every evidence of fear or worry in the faces of those who are nursing him. ”

“ O yes, a nurse or patient may break that rule, or almost any rule, and the patient may live. I had a patient, left alone for a moment on the climacteric day, who was found standing at her mirror combing her hair, and to-day she's as well as you or I. I had another who got out of bed, walked down a corridor, fell face downward and lay insensible at the crack of a doorsill with the rain blowing in on him under the door—and he got well. As to Fontenette, all his symptoms so far are good. ”

“ The patient should be kept quiet, cool, and every way easy, as directed under the foregoing disease. His feet and hands ought daily to be bathed in lukewarm water; and he may sometimes sit up in bed for a short space, in order to relieve his head. ”

“ How to visit the sick and not hurt them.
Always sit within the patient's view, so that when you speak to him he has not painfully to turn his head round in order to look at you. Everybody involuntarily looks at the person speaking. If you make this act a wearisome one on the part of the patient you are doing him harm. So also if by continuing to stand you make him continuously raise his eyes to see you. Be as motionless as possible, and never gesticulate in speaking to the sick. ”

“ The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient he is sick, and treating the case Ordinary practice. according to his diagnosis, would, by this course, induce that very disease, even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. He thus commits an unconscious offence against happiness and health, and ensures a good job for himself, if not a fatal one for his patient. ”

“ I am aware, indeed, that those alone who, like ourselves, have felt the weight of medical responsibility, can fully estimate the difficulties to be encountered in attempting to advance the highest interest of a patient, while conscientiously discharging our primary duty, in the exertion of our utmost efforts for the restoration or relief of his bodily frame. ”

“ Life is a hospital, in which every patient is possessed by the desire of changing his bed. ”

“ Hence it is that the diagnosis of injury and disease in the extremes oflife is beset by especial difficulties, since the entire body is as silent as are the brain, the pericardium, the mediastinum, and other symptomless areas. For the same reason, when a patient who is seriously ill with a painful disease turns upon the physician a glowing eye and an eager face, and remarks how comfortable he feels, then the end is near. ”

“ The prognosis is, in the majority of cases, good. A cure can be effected in any case, provided the directions followed are faithfully carried out, especially in a private institution, where absolute control of patient and nurse is possible, and where the number of patients is limited. ”

“ The students in turn were permitted first to question the patient about his ailment and then afterward to make whatever physical examination appeared to be necessary; next, each one of them stated briefly what he believed to be the nature of the malady, and also gave his views as to the prognosis, symptoms and treatment; after which the professor commented on these different reports, pointing out both the correct and the incorrect features in each case. ”

“ A patient who finds his disorder daily growing worse, and that an efficacious remedy can no longer be delayed without extreme danger, after coolly revolving his situation, and the characters of different physicians, selects and calls in such of them as he judges most capable of administering relief, and best entitled to his confidence. ”

“ I am, as you know, not a young man, and in the practice of my profession, which has extended over a period of nearly thirty years, I have learned to diagnose the cases that come under my care very slowly and by degrees. Every year has taught me, what you will undoubtedly learn—for I have great hopes for your future career—that physical symptoms are often the results of mental ailments, and that, while cordials and powders are sometimes very useful aids, the first and all-important thing is to understand fully the true history of my patient. ”