brandy during the day, how is he to take this if you make
it into four pints with diluting it? The same with tea and beef tea,
with arrowroot, milk, &c. You have not increased the nourishment, you
have not increased the renovating power of these articles, by increasing
their bulk,--you have very likely diminished both by giving the
patient's digestion more to do, and most likely of all, the patient will
leave half of what he has been ordered to take, because he cannot
swallow the bulk with which you have been pleased to invest it. It
requires very nice observation and care (and meets with hardly any) to
determine what will not be too thick or strong for the patient to take,
while giving him no more than the bulk which he is able to swallow.
VIII. BED AND BEDDING.
[Sidenote: Feverishness a symptom of bedding.]
A few words upon bedsteads and bedding; and principally as regards
patients who are entirely, or almost entirely, confined to bed.
Feverishness is generally supposed to be a symptom of fever--in nine
cases out of ten it is a symptom of bedding.[26] The patient has had
re-introduced into the body the emanations from himself which day after
day and week after week saturate his unaired bedding.
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