And good sick cookery will save the digestion half its
work.
There may be four different causes, any one of which will produce the
same result, viz., the patient slowly starving to death from want of
nutrition:
1. Defect in cooking;
2. Defect in choice of diet;
3. Defect in choice of hours for taking diet;
4. Defect of appetite in patient.
Yet all these are generally comprehended in the one sweeping assertion
that the patient has "no appetite."
Surely many lives might be saved by drawing a closer distinction; for
the remedies are as diverse as the causes. The remedy for the first is,
to cook better; for the second, to choose other articles of diet; for
the third, to watch for the hours when the patient is in want of food;
for the fourth, to show him what he likes, and sometimes unexpectedly.
But no one of these remedies will do for any other of the defects not
corresponding with it.
I cannot too often repeat that patients are generally either too languid
to observe these things, or too shy to speak about them; nor is it well
that they should be made to observe them, it fixes their attention upon
themselves.
Pages:
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150