[Sidenote: Patients often starved to death in chronic cases.]
But, in chronic cases, lasting over months and years, where the fatal
issue is often determined at last by mere protracted starvation, I had
rather not enumerate the instances which I have known where a little
ingenuity, and a great deal of perseverance, might, in all probability,
have averted the result. The consulting the hours when the patient can
take food, the observation of the times, often varying, when he is most
faint, the altering seasons of taking food, in order to anticipate and
prevent such times--all this, which requires observation, ingenuity, and
perseverance (and these really constitute the good Nurse), might save
more lives than we wot of.
[Sidenote: Food never to be left by the patient's side.]
To leave the patient's untasted food by his side, from meal to meal, in
hopes that he will eat it in the interval, is simply to prevent him from
taking any food at all. I have known patients literally incapacitated
from taking one article of food after another, by this piece of
ignorance. Let the food come at the right time, and be taken away, eaten
or uneaten, at the right time; but never let a patient have "something
always standing" by him, if you don't wish to disgust him of everything.
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