hospital nurses, as long as the amateurs one ready in a house rejoices heartily. hold out. 66 "" Sisters are resorted to now His own credit as well as the recovery of in many cases, but unfortunately there his patient is probably assured. Seldom, are benighted souls who do not like however, has he this good fortune. His "Sisters," delightful as they are often ordinary experience is very different. found to be; people who are puzzled If he wishes the sick-room kept at a cerabout their position, like Lord Dundreary tain temperature, he cannot have it manabout Sam; patients who associate them, aged. The fire is alternately half extinct perhaps not unnaturally, with confession and blazing up the chimney. There is and extreme unction. It is ill-naturedly no care to have it warm at sunrise and said that, unless sisterhoods wore uni- sunset, and moderate when the sun is forms, ladies could not be found to go shining and the air warm. The invalid into them; that the coffee-coloured or is awakened from a priceless sleep by black dress, the becoming straw bonnet, hearing the cinders fall on the unproand the silver crucifix have an effect on tected fender, or by the noise of a clumsy the female mind like that produced upon hand putting on coals, which might easily every boy by the aspect of a life-guards- have been wrapped in pieces of damp man in his panoply; but it is certain that paper and left ready for noiseless use. many sick people who have to submit to The morning meal is perhaps delayed hired or professional nursing of any kind until the patient has passed from appewould prefer to see no white lawn or blue tite to faintness. Perhaps, when it comes, serge, no rosary or knotted cords. There the tea is smoked. Household troubles is an opening for what may be called are freely discussed in the room. Mary medical assistants, to take a place be- has given warning because there is so tween lady doctors and ordinary sick- much more going up and down stairs nurses. They might be taken from the since Missus was ill; the cook is so exclass which now supplies the suffering travagant, and yesterday's dinner was fellowship of governesses, already too spoilt; Johnny has cut his finger, and numerous and from which companions Lucy has tumbled down-stairs; such who are no company are now drawn. things are told as if they would amuse They would require to have the keen per- the invalid. But worse than this is the ceptions and nice ways of ladies, yet mysterious whispering at the door, and they must not be above supplying all the the secrets obviously kept to excite the patient's needs. Their training ought nervous patient's suspicions. The irrinot to be made expensive, for women are tating creak of a dry boot, the shuffling apt in learning these things; hands which of a loose slipper, try a sick person's pacould never play a sonata of Beethoven, tience unreasonably; and the amateur might adjust a bandage, and voices whose nurse argues against such silly fancies, singing would be painful to hear might and thinks they are matters in which soothe the sick one's ear with kindly reasoning can be of any avail. words. Where the lady of the house is untrained nurse never commences her laid up such a nurse could answer her arrangements for the night until the letters, see a visitor who called to in-patient is just beginning to grow a little quire, read the newspaper intelligently, sleepy. She then arranges the pillows, talk of something besides the dying ago- moves the chairs, stirs the fire, and pernies of her last case, and perhaps judge haps makes up her own bed. Such fusses wisely when the patient must be kept at sleeping-time produce fever in a most quiet and when she may see a friend. unaccountable way, and the amateur is Such a person could without offence dis- amazed and bewildered because the pamiss a visitor who stayed too long, and tient lies awake all night. Besides all assume the responsibility of allowing the this, and no matter how noisy and elabchildren to see mamma, while she ordered orate the preparations for the night's their goings to prevent a racket or a cry. campaign, several things are forgotten But it is painful to see a patient nursed down-stairs; no beef-tea is to be had in in the common manner. The tact re- the middle of the night, no spoon for the quired for a sick-room differs from all medicine, no boiling water. Amateurs other kinds of experience. Amateur do not know that sick people should not nurses seldom possess it. Now and then be asked what they will have, but should a lady is to the manner born, and with- be saved even the mental exertion of out instruction or previous experience making a choice. However desirable it blossoms into a full-grown nurse at a may be that they should arrange their moment's notice. The doctor who finds 'affairs, business matters should not be

The

gether, and when the end, inevitable in such cases, comes at last, is subject to lifelong self-questionings as to whether anything more might have been done. Some people, again, are never to be warned of danger until it is too late. The doctor's grave looks are unseen, his warnings unheeded, and then he has to bear the blame of the result. When a death oc

discussed before them. Sometimes a night, is seldom thought of; yet a little
man who has not made his will before trouble taken in time has often saved a
his illness will be anxious and uneasy till delicate constitution from falling into
he has made it, and will get better when consumption. Even in a bad climate it
the matter is off his mind. But to ar- is only by experiment that any one can
range such things requires nicety and tell how far this terror of all families may
tact such as the amateur, who perhaps be escaped. People are wholly demoral-
shares the sick man's anxiety, cannot ized by fear when its name is mentioned.
show.
Medical men who hesitate to use the
In convalescence, even more than in word, knowing what despair it will lead
illness, the attentions of an inexperienced to, are accused of deceit. The frantic
nurse are often trying to the invalid. If parent whose child is threatened tries all
he has been well nursed he is still amen-kinds of experiments, rushes wildly from
able to the discipline of the sick-room, place to place, consults all kinds of
and will probably do what he is bid. But quacks, uses half a dozen methods of
if he has not learned unquestioning treatment, perhaps all at the same time,
obedience to a benevolent but irresponsi- alternately keeps the patient constantly
ble power, he has many things to suffer in the open air and secludes him alto-
before he gets well. At first, perhaps,
he will be allowed to sit up hours when
minutes were the doctor's orders. He, is
able to persuade his nurse to give him a
tumbler of claret, when the medical
allowance was a wineglass. He is al-
lowed to see the newspaper for a few
minutes, and he reads an exciting novel.
He is permitted to see a visitor, and has
a room full of company. He is over-curs for the first time in a household, the
loaded with muffling when he takes his calamity comes with a crushing force.
first walk, and is allowed to sit on a cold Everybody is thrown off his balance; all
garden seat. When he goes home no kinds of reasons have to be invented for
nourishment is ready for him, and the what is unfortunately a too common oc-
chances are his house-clothes are unaired. | currence. The right reason is seldom
And as he gradually emancipates him- thought of, for all that love and anxiety
self from the bondage of illness, and re- could do has been done. But the doctor
turns to ordinary life, it is seldom that requires something more, for love and
his reviving appetite is properly hu- anxiety are not always helps to him.
moured. The sequela, as they are called, little exact and unreasoning obedience to
of many fevers are both induced and ag- his orders, a little disregard of the pa-
gravated by the carelessness by which tient's morbid cravings, a complete ab-
unwholesome food is offered to the re-sence of any display of nervousness
covering invalid. This is even more often or fear, and his patient's chances are
the case where there is chronic illness or doubled. It is a pity Mr. Ruskin has
delicacy of constitution. It is amazing never turned his practical mind upon
to see a man suffering from a deadly com- these matters. His Utopia is to consist
plaint set down to a dinner where he has only of young and healthy people; and
to choose between stewed kidneys and in one of the recent numbers of Fors
salt beef. If he is cautious, which is not Clavigera he defines woman's work with-
often the case, his hostess will wonder out any reference to nursing. He says
to see him prefer a bread-and-water diet. they are to please people, to feed them in
But the entire ignorance of what consti- dainty ways, to clothe them, to keep them
tutes wholesomeness in food is a curious orderly, and to teach them. He says not
feature in the character of many house- a word about nursing them in sickness;
keepers. In all diseases of the respira- possibly he contemplates the institution
tory organs the importance of care in of “Euthanasia.”
adjusting the temperature, especially at

A

FROM a paper on "Some indigenous Tuscan Remedies," read by Mr. H. Groves before the recent Pharmaceutical Conference, it would seem that plants furnish a considerable portion of the medicinal products in use in that country. Many of the plants enumerated are well known as medicinal plants in other parts of Europe. The Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), for instance, is said to be found in the cupboard of every housewife, being used as a calming antispasmodic, and also applied hot externally for relieving pain. A custom very prevalent in Tuscany seems to be the administration of herb-juice in spring, which is prepared daily by many herbalists, and is also ordered by medical men. Nasturtium officinale, known as Crescione, is used in conjunction with Cochlearia officinalis in the composition of herb-juice. This latter plant, though indigenous, is also cultivated to some extent. The flowers of the Wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri), under the name of Viole gialle, or Yellow Violets, are boiled in olive-oil and used for enemata. With regard to products other than plants, the writer remarks that viper-broth is gone out of fashion, and the pharmacist is spared keeping those reptiles and the pincers with which they were handled. Snail-poultices are still used in the country. The snails are applied alive, the shell being crushed or partly removed, and the snails set upside down on a piece of coarse paper; they are then sprinkled with a little vinegar and applied at once to the soles of the feet, on which they produce an irritation greater than mustard, and which is supposed to be effica

cious in some cases of fever.

Nature.

common things on the minds of those who are to go forth and do battle with the ignorance and failings of our population, and to spread light throughout the land. A little knowledge of the ancient elements, fire, air, earth, and water, would save many a young clergyman from the vanity of ridiculous extremes, and from the surprise of the more wisely and widely educated among his flock." Surely no one will think that with regard to the universities Prof. Pritchard is asking too much! He then goes on:" Depend upon it, whatever may be our suspicions or our fears, the pursuit of the knowledge of the works of nature will increase, and increase with an accelerated velocity; and if our clergy decline to keep pace with it, and to direct it into wholesome channels, they and their flocks will be overtaken, though from opposite directions, by the inevitable Nemesis of disproportion."

Nature.

THE history of the domestic fowl has occuPied the attention of Herr Jeitteles, and he states that although the species Gallus is not there in the Tertiary epoch; in the quarternow wild in Europe, there were wild sorts nary period of the Mammoth there were two varieties, one coming near, or identical with the pile-dwellings of the Stone Period the the domestic fowl in Western Europe. In domestic fowl does not appear, but it does

in the Bronze Period: it is found in Celtic
graves. In Upper India and China, the do-
mestic fowl, whose wild ancestor the Bankiva
fowl is still living, spread in very early times
through Central and Eastern Asia.
It was
common about the Mediterranean in the fifth

century, and known to Germans, Celts and Britons long before the time of the Roman Empire, and may have come from the East through Southern Russia, Poland and Hun

gary.

THE British Association partook this year somewhat of the nature of a Church Congress; the real Church Congress has, en revanche, partaken somewhat of a British Association meeting, Prof. Pritchard having communicated a paper to it giving his view of certain conclusions to be drawn from our present knowledge of molecules, and quoting in support of it the honoured names of Herschel and ClerkMaxwell. As we are informed that the paper will be published in extenso elsewhere, we need not refer to it at any length here; but there is one bit of it which, coming from a clergyman and a professor at Oxford, we cannot refrain from quoting. He suggests that it would be a good thing "if in the study of every manse throughout England there were found a wellused microscope, and on the lawn a tolerable telescope; and, best of all, if those who possess influence in our national universities could see their way to the enforcement of a small modicum of the practical knowledge of ago.

THE New Zealand Government has sent special agents over to England for the purpose of collecting a quantity of small birds of various kinds, and a colony of humble-bees, for introduction into that country. It is expected that the consignment will be ready for despatch in a few days. Another attempt will also be made this year to send a quantity of salmon over to the antipodes, only 135 salmon being now alive out of the 120,000 salmon-eggs which were despatched two years

Nature.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY.