January 6, 2023 • 10 mins
https://www.solgood.org - View our full collection of audiobooks, short stories, & sounds for sleep at our website
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Section eight, Bed and bedding.A few words upon bedsteads and bedding,
and principally as regards patients who areentirely or almost entirely confined to bed.
Feverishness is generally supposed to be asymptom of fever. In nine cases out
of ten, it is a symptomof bedding. The patient has had reintroduced
(00:25):
into the body the emanations from himself, which, day after day and week
after week saturate his unaired bedding.How can it be otherwise? Look at
the ordinary bed in which a patientlies. If I were looking out for
an example, in order to showwhat not to do, I should take
the specimen of an ordinary bed ina private house, a wooden bedstead,
(00:49):
two or even three mattresses piled upto above the height of a table,
a valance attached to the frame.Nothing but a miracle could ever thoroughly dry
or air such a bed and bed. The patient must inevitably alternate between cold
damp after his bed is made,and warm damp before, both saturated with
organic matter. And this from thetime the mattresses are put under him till
(01:12):
the time they are picked to pieces. If this is ever done, if
you consider that an adult in healthexhales by the lungs and skin in the
twenty four hours three pints at leastof moisture loaded with organic matter ready to
enter into putrefaction, that in sicknessthe quantity is often greatly increased, the
(01:33):
quality is always more noxious. Justask yourself next, where does all this
moisture go to? Chiefly into thebedding, because it cannot go anywhere else,
and it stays there because, exceptperhaps a weekly change of sheets,
scarcely any other airing is attempted.A nurse will be careful to fidgetiness about
(01:56):
airing the clean sheets from clean damp, but airing the dirty sheets from noxia
s damp will never even occur toher. Besides this, the most dangerous
effluvia we know of are from theexcretia of the sick. These are placed,
at least temporarily where they must throwtheir effluvia into the under side of
the bed, and the space underthe bed is never aired. It cannot
(02:20):
be with our arrangements. Must notsuch a bed be always saturated and be
always the means of reintroducing into thesystem of the unfortunate patient who lies in
it. That excrementitious matter to eliminatewhich from the body Nature had expressly appointed
the dis ease. My heart alwayssinks within me when I hear the good
(02:43):
housewife of every class say, Iassure you the bed has been well slept
in, And I can only hopeit is not true. What is the
bed already saturated with somebody else's dampbefore my patient comes to exhale into it
his own damp? Has it nothad a single chance to be aired?
No, not one. It hasbeen slept in every night. The only
(03:08):
way of really nursing a real patientis to have an iron bedstead with reclined
springs, which are permeable by theair up to the very mattress. No
valance, of course, the mattressto be a thin hair one, the
bed to be not above three anda half feet wide. If the patient
be entirely confined to his bed,there should be two such bedsteads, each
(03:31):
bed to be made with mattress,sheets, blankets, et cetera. Complete
the patient to pass twelve hours ineach bed, on no account to carry
his sheets with him. The wholeof the bedding to be hung up to
air for each intermediate twelve hours.Of course, there are many cases where
(03:52):
this cannot be done at all,many more were only an approach to it
can be made. I am indicatingthe ideal of nursing and what I have
actually had done. But about thekind of bedstead, there can be no
doubt whether there be one or two. Provided there is a prejudice in favor
of a wide bed, I believeit to be a prejudice all. The
(04:15):
refreshment of moving a patient from oneside to the other of his bed is
far more effectually secured by putting himinto a fresh bed, And a patient
who is really very ill does notstray far in bed. But it is
said there is no room to putdown a tray on a narrow bed.
No good nurse will ever put atray on a bed at all. If
(04:38):
the patient can turn on his side, he will eat more comfortably from a
bedside table. And on no accountwhatever should a bed ever be higher than
a sofa. Otherwise the patient feelshimself out of humanity's reach. He can
get at nothing for himself, hecan move nothing for himself. If the
patient cannot turn a table over,the bed is a better thing. I
(05:01):
need hardly say that a patient's bedshould never have its side against the wall.
The nurse must be able to geteasily to both sides of the bed,
and to reach easily every part ofthe patient without stretching. A thing
impossible if the bed be either toowide or too high. When I see
a patient in a room nine orten feet high upon a bed between four
(05:25):
and five feet high, with hishead when he is sitting up in bed
actually within two or three feet ofthe ceiling, I ask myself, is
this expressly planned to produce that peculiarlydistressing feeling common to the sick? That
is, as if the walls andceiling were closing in upon them, and
they becoming sandwiches between floor and ceiling, which imagination is not indeed here so
(05:50):
far from the truth. If overand above this the window stops short of
the ceiling, then the patient's headmay literally be raised above the stratum of
fresh air, even when the windowis open. Can human perversity any farther
go? In unmaking the process ofrestoration which God has made? The fact
(06:13):
is that the heads of sleepers orof sick should never be higher than the
throat of the chimney, which ensurestheir being and the current of best air,
And we will not suppose it possiblethat you have closed your chimney with
a chimney board. If a bedis higher than a sofa, the difference
of the fatigue of getting in andout of bed will just make the difference
(06:34):
very often to the patient who canget in and out of bed at all,
of being able to take a fewminutes exercise, either in the open
air or in another room. Itis so very odd that people never think
of this, or of how manymore times a patient who is in bed
for the twenty four hours is obligedto get in and out of bed than
(06:56):
they are who only it is tobe hoped get into bed once and out
of bed once during the twenty fourhours. A patient's bed should always be
in the lightest spot in the room, and he should be able to see
out of window. I need scarcelysay that the old four post bed with
curtains is utterly inadmissible, whether forsick or well. Hospital bedsteads are in
(07:21):
many respects very much less objectionable thanprivate ones. There is reason to believe
that not a few of the apparentlyunaccountable cases of scruffula among children proceed from
the habit of sleeping with a headunder the bedclothes, and so inhaling air
already breathed, which is farther contaminatedby exhalations from the skin. Patients are
(07:45):
sometimes given to a similar habit,and it often happens that the bedclothes are
so disposed that the patient must necessarilybreathe air more or less contaminated by exhalations
from his skin. A good nursewill be careful to attend to this.
It is an important part, soto speak of ventilation. It may be
worth while to remark that where thereis any danger of bed sores, a
(08:09):
blanket should never be placed under thepatient. It retains damp and acts like
a poultice. Never use anything butlight whitney blankets as bed covering for the
sick. The heavy cotton impervious counterpaneis bad for the very reason that it
keeps in the emanations from the sickperson, while the blanket allows them to
(08:31):
pass through. Weak patients are invariablydistressed by a great weight of bedclothes,
which often prevents their getting any soundsleep. Whatever, note one word about
pillows. Every weak patient be hisillness, what it may suffers more or
less from difficulty in breathing, totake the weight of the body off the
(08:54):
poor chest, which is hardly upto its work. As it is ought
therefore to be the object of thenurse in arranging his pillows. Now what
does she do and what are theconsequences? She piles the pillows one atop
the other like a wall of bricks. The head is thrown upon the chest,
and the shoulders are pushed forward soas not to allow the lungs room
(09:16):
to expand. The pillows, infact lean upon the patient, not the
patient upon the pillows. It isimpossible to give a rule for this,
because it must vary with the figureof the patient, and tall patients suffer
much more than short ones because ofthe drag of the long limbs upon the
waist. But the object is tosupport with the pillows the back below the
(09:39):
breathing apparatus, to allow the shouldersroom to fall back, and to support
the head without throwing it forward.The suffering of dying patients is immensely increased
by neglect of these points, andmany an invalid, too weak to drag
about his pillows himself slips his bookor anything hand behind the lower part of
(10:01):
his back to support it. Endof Section eight,
Section eight, Bed and bedding.A few words upon bedsteads and bedding,
and principally as regards patients who areentirely or almost entirely confined to bed.
Feverishness is generally supposed to be asymptom of fever. In nine cases out
of ten, it is a symptomof bedding. The patient has had reintroduced
(00:25):
into the body the emanations from himself, which, day after day and week
after week saturate his unaired bedding.How can it be otherwise? Look at
the ordinary bed in which a patientlies. If I were looking out for
an example, in order to showwhat not to do, I should take
the specimen of an ordinary bed ina private house, a wooden bedstead,
(00:49):
two or even three mattresses piled upto above the height of a table,
a valance attached to the frame.Nothing but a miracle could ever thoroughly dry
or air such a bed and bed. The patient must inevitably alternate between cold
damp after his bed is made,and warm damp before, both saturated with
organic matter. And this from thetime the mattresses are put under him till
(01:12):
the time they are picked to pieces. If this is ever done, if
you consider that an adult in healthexhales by the lungs and skin in the
twenty four hours three pints at leastof moisture loaded with organic matter ready to
enter into putrefaction, that in sicknessthe quantity is often greatly increased, the
(01:33):
quality is always more noxious. Justask yourself next, where does all this
moisture go to? Chiefly into thebedding, because it cannot go anywhere else,
and it stays there because, exceptperhaps a weekly change of sheets,
scarcely any other airing is attempted.A nurse will be careful to fidgetiness about
(01:56):
airing the clean sheets from clean damp, but airing the dirty sheets from noxia
s damp will never even occur toher. Besides this, the most dangerous
effluvia we know of are from theexcretia of the sick. These are placed,
at least temporarily where they must throwtheir effluvia into the under side of
the bed, and the space underthe bed is never aired. It cannot
(02:20):
be with our arrangements. Must notsuch a bed be always saturated and be
always the means of reintroducing into thesystem of the unfortunate patient who lies in
it. That excrementitious matter to eliminatewhich from the body Nature had expressly appointed
the dis ease. My heart alwayssinks within me when I hear the good
(02:43):
housewife of every class say, Iassure you the bed has been well slept
in, And I can only hopeit is not true. What is the
bed already saturated with somebody else's dampbefore my patient comes to exhale into it
his own damp? Has it nothad a single chance to be aired?
No, not one. It hasbeen slept in every night. The only
(03:08):
way of really nursing a real patientis to have an iron bedstead with reclined
springs, which are permeable by theair up to the very mattress. No
valance, of course, the mattressto be a thin hair one, the
bed to be not above three anda half feet wide. If the patient
be entirely confined to his bed,there should be two such bedsteads, each
(03:31):
bed to be made with mattress,sheets, blankets, et cetera. Complete
the patient to pass twelve hours ineach bed, on no account to carry
his sheets with him. The wholeof the bedding to be hung up to
air for each intermediate twelve hours.Of course, there are many cases where
(03:52):
this cannot be done at all,many more were only an approach to it
can be made. I am indicatingthe ideal of nursing and what I have
actually had done. But about thekind of bedstead, there can be no
doubt whether there be one or two. Provided there is a prejudice in favor
of a wide bed, I believeit to be a prejudice all. The
(04:15):
refreshment of moving a patient from oneside to the other of his bed is
far more effectually secured by putting himinto a fresh bed, And a patient
who is really very ill does notstray far in bed. But it is
said there is no room to putdown a tray on a narrow bed.
No good nurse will ever put atray on a bed at all. If
(04:38):
the patient can turn on his side, he will eat more comfortably from a
bedside table. And on no accountwhatever should a bed ever be higher than
a sofa. Otherwise the patient feelshimself out of humanity's reach. He can
get at nothing for himself, hecan move nothing for himself. If the
patient cannot turn a table over,the bed is a better thing. I
(05:01):
need hardly say that a patient's bedshould never have its side against the wall.
The nurse must be able to geteasily to both sides of the bed,
and to reach easily every part ofthe patient without stretching. A thing
impossible if the bed be either toowide or too high. When I see
a patient in a room nine orten feet high upon a bed between four
(05:25):
and five feet high, with hishead when he is sitting up in bed
actually within two or three feet ofthe ceiling, I ask myself, is
this expressly planned to produce that peculiarlydistressing feeling common to the sick? That
is, as if the walls andceiling were closing in upon them, and
they becoming sandwiches between floor and ceiling, which imagination is not indeed here so
(05:50):
far from the truth. If overand above this the window stops short of
the ceiling, then the patient's headmay literally be raised above the stratum of
fresh air, even when the windowis open. Can human perversity any farther
go? In unmaking the process ofrestoration which God has made? The fact
(06:13):
is that the heads of sleepers orof sick should never be higher than the
throat of the chimney, which ensurestheir being and the current of best air,
And we will not suppose it possiblethat you have closed your chimney with
a chimney board. If a bedis higher than a sofa, the difference
of the fatigue of getting in andout of bed will just make the difference
(06:34):
very often to the patient who canget in and out of bed at all,
of being able to take a fewminutes exercise, either in the open
air or in another room. Itis so very odd that people never think
of this, or of how manymore times a patient who is in bed
for the twenty four hours is obligedto get in and out of bed than
(06:56):
they are who only it is tobe hoped get into bed once and out
of bed once during the twenty fourhours. A patient's bed should always be
in the lightest spot in the room, and he should be able to see
out of window. I need scarcelysay that the old four post bed with
curtains is utterly inadmissible, whether forsick or well. Hospital bedsteads are in
(07:21):
many respects very much less objectionable thanprivate ones. There is reason to believe
that not a few of the apparentlyunaccountable cases of scruffula among children proceed from
the habit of sleeping with a headunder the bedclothes, and so inhaling air
already breathed, which is farther contaminatedby exhalations from the skin. Patients are
(07:45):
sometimes given to a similar habit,and it often happens that the bedclothes are
so disposed that the patient must necessarilybreathe air more or less contaminated by exhalations
from his skin. A good nursewill be careful to attend to this.
It is an important part, soto speak of ventilation. It may be
worth while to remark that where thereis any danger of bed sores, a
(08:09):
blanket should never be placed under thepatient. It retains damp and acts like
a poultice. Never use anything butlight whitney blankets as bed covering for the
sick. The heavy cotton impervious counterpaneis bad for the very reason that it
keeps in the emanations from the sickperson, while the blanket allows them to
(08:31):
pass through. Weak patients are invariablydistressed by a great weight of bedclothes,
which often prevents their getting any soundsleep. Whatever, note one word about
pillows. Every weak patient be hisillness, what it may suffers more or
less from difficulty in breathing, totake the weight of the body off the
(08:54):
poor chest, which is hardly upto its work. As it is ought
therefore to be the object of thenurse in arranging his pillows. Now what
does she do and what are theconsequences? She piles the pillows one atop
the other like a wall of bricks. The head is thrown upon the chest,
and the shoulders are pushed forward soas not to allow the lungs room
(09:16):
to expand. The pillows, infact lean upon the patient, not the
patient upon the pillows. It isimpossible to give a rule for this,
because it must vary with the figureof the patient, and tall patients suffer
much more than short ones because ofthe drag of the long limbs upon the
waist. But the object is tosupport with the pillows the back below the
(09:39):
breathing apparatus, to allow the shouldersroom to fall back, and to support
the head without throwing it forward.The suffering of dying patients is immensely increased
by neglect of these points, andmany an invalid, too weak to drag
about his pillows himself slips his bookor anything hand behind the lower part of
(10:01):
his back to support it. Endof Section eight,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!