Upon the observance of these rules, especially the first, often depends
the patient's capability of taking food at all, or, if he is amiable and
forces himself to take food, of deriving any nourishment from it.
[Sidenote: You cannot be too careful as to quality in sick diet.]
A nurse should never put before a patient milk that is sour, meat or
soup that is turned, an egg that is bad, or vegetables underdone. Yet
often I have seen these things brought in to the sick in a state
perfectly perceptible to every nose or eye except the nurse's. It is
here that the clever nurse appears; she will not bring in the peccant
article, but, not to disappoint the patient, she will whip up something
else in a few minutes. Remember that sick cookery should half do the
work of your poor patient's weak digestion. But if you further impair it
with your bad articles, I know not what is to become of him or of it.
If the nurse is an intelligent being, and not a mere carrier of diets to
and from the patient, let her exercise her intelligence in these things.
How often we have known a patient eat nothing at all in the day, because
one meal was left untasted (at that time he was incapable of eating), at
another the milk was sour, the third was spoiled by some other accident.
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