the nurse's nerves, strained to their utmost, can regain their
tone, where the responsibility borne by the doctor and shared by
the nurse is not so great a weight, and the knowledge of one more
victory over death, one more human life saved, gives a joyousness
to the day that is good to experience.

The satisfaction of knowing that by your help the patient has
come, perhaps, from the gates of death; the pleasure of noting day
by day the return of healthful sensations, the gradual ever-
growing desire to once more take his accustomed place in the life
work that has been interrupted--all these are missed by the nurse
who flies from convalescents.

May it not be that the change in occupation has something to do
with this unwillingness to remain with a patient when he is
convalescing? When a temperature has to be taken but once a day,
or when the doctor only makes visits twice a week, when all the
routine of the sick-room gives way to a more natural atmosphere,
many nurses do not feel at ease, they do not read aloud
pleasantly, they do not care for books, and, if the patient asks
for this amusement, the reading is a torment to the nurse, and I
imagine it does not afford much pleasure to the listener. A nurse
once gave me a graphic description of her efforts to read "Romola"
to a convalescent typhoid patient. The poor nurse knew nothing of
Florence or of the Italian language, and her struggles over the
foreign words in that book must have been funny enough. Her
patient was not much edified--of that I am certain. If a nurse
does not read aloud understandingly, she should make every effort
to learn. She thereby increases her usefulness, and makes herself
more acceptable to her patients. She adds to her own value. She is