I need hardly say that I am well aware that excess in needle-work, in
writing, in any other continuous employment, will produce the same
irritability that defect in manual employment (as one cause) produces in
the sick.
VI. TAKING FOOD.
[Sidenote: Want of attention to hours of taking food.]
Every careful observer of the sick will agree in this that thousands of
patients are annually starved in the midst of plenty, from want of
attention to the ways which alone make it possible for them to take
food. This want of attention is as remarkable in those who urge upon the
sick to do what is quite impossible to them, as in the sick themselves
who will not make the effort to do what is perfectly possible to them.
For instance, to the large majority of very weak patients it is quite
impossible to take any solid food before 11 A.M., nor then, if
their strength is still further exhausted by fasting till that hour. For
weak patients have generally feverish nights and, in the morning, dry
mouths; and, if they could eat with those dry mouths, it would be the
worse for them.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85