HOME TREATMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 252, 24 October 1934, Page 15

HOME TREATMENT.

NURSING.

(Bv PERITUS.) j ' ... I

I have been reading an article on nursing, by Florence Nightingale, pub-1 lislicd in 1902, and as it sets a standard of quality as true to-day as it was when written, I quote the ten requirements of a nurse. Shakespeare wrote of one, "So kind, so duteous, diligent, so tender over his occasions, true, so feat." The quality of hardness grows; on some with use, and the war, which softened some women drovo from others both sentiment and sympathy. Florence Nightingale says, "She needs be of the highest class of character (1) Chaste, in the sense of the Sermon on tlie Mount, a Sermon on the Mount in herself nursing is the only case in which a woman is really in charge of men. (2) Sober, in spirit, as well as in drink, and temperate in all things. (3) Honest, beyond a bribe. (4) Truthful, true to observe, to remember, to express, and nothing but the truth. (5) Trustworthy, to carry out instructions intelligently, and perfectly, unseen as well as seen, 'to the Lord as well as to men. (0) Punctual to a second, orderly to a hair, everything ready, nothing forgotten. (7) Quiet, yet quick without hurry, gentle without slowness, without selfimportance, no gossip. (8) Cheerful, hopeful, not discouraged, never depressing. (0) Cleanly, to exquisiteness, neat, ready for patient's sake and her own. (10)' Thinking of her patient, not of herself, kindly, patient, ingenious, cheerful." "Tender over his occasions." The patient's test of the nurse is that he has no wants. There must be no forced or unnatural calmness, but a steady, easy placidity due to a knowledge of abiiity to meet the needs of each emergency. Half the battle of nursing is to relieve your sick from having to think for themselves at all. The moral and social attitude is of equal importance to the professional scientific, the mental influence never to be forgotten. I should like all young nurses to read "The Grev Battalion," by Sister Tilton, who, so frank about nursing imperfections, yet saw always the ideal to be attained.