If a bed is higher than a sofa, the difference of the fatigue of getting in and out of bed will just make the difference, very often, to the patient (who can get in and out of bed at all) of being able to take a few minutes’ exercise, either in the open air or in another room.  It is so very odd that people never think of this, or of how many more times a patient who is in bed for the twenty-four hours is obliged to get in and out of bed than they are, who only, it is to be hoped, get into bed once and out of bed once during the twenty-four hours.

[Sidenote:  Nor in a dark place.]

A patient’s bed should always be in the lightest spot in the room; and he should be able to see out of window.

[Sidenote:  Nor a four poster with curtains.]

I need scarcely say that the old four-post bed with curtains is utterly inadmissible, whether for sick or well.  Hospital bedsteads are in many respects very much less objectionable than private ones.

[Sidenote:  Scrofula often a result of disposition of bedclothes.]

There is reason to believe that not a few of the apparently unaccountable cases of scrofula among children proceed from the habit of sleeping with the head under the bed clothes, and so inhaling air already breathed, which is farther contaminated by exhalations from the skin.  Patients are sometimes given to a similar habit, and it often happens that the bed clothes are so disposed that the patient must necessarily breathe air more or less contaminated by exhalations from his skin.  A good nurse will be careful to attend to this.  It is an important part, so to speak, of ventilation.

[Sidenote:  Bed sores.]

It may be worth while to remark, that where there is any danger of bed-sores a blanket should never be placed under the patient.  It retains damp and acts like a poultice.

[Sidenote:  Heavy and impervious bedclothes.]

Never use anything but light Witney blankets as bed covering for the sick.  The heavy cotton impervious counterpane is bad, for the very reason that it keeps in the emanations from the sick person, while the blanket allows them to pass through.  Weak patients are invariably distressed by a great weight of bed-clothes, which often prevents their getting any sound sleep whatever.

NOTE.—­One word about pillows.  Every weak patient, be his illness what it may, suffers more or less from difficulty in breathing.  To take the weight of the body off the poor chest, which is hardly up to its work as it is, ought therefore to be the object of the nurse in arranging his pillows.  Now what does she do and what are the consequences?  She piles the pillows one a-top of the other like a wall of bricks.  The head is thrown upon the chest.  And the shoulders are pushed forward, so as not to allow the lungs room to expand.  The pillows, in fact, lean upon the patient, not the patient upon the pillows.  It is impossible to give a rule for this, because it