"I am not going to be a nurse, certainly, John," Cyril said, with a
laugh. "I expect that the doctor wants certain cases watched. Either
he may doubt the nurses, or he may want to see how some particular
drug works. Nothing, so far, seems of use, but that may be partly
because the doctors are all so busy that they cannot watch the
patients and see, from hour to hour, how medicines act."

"When I was in the Levant, and the pest was bad there," John Wilkes
said, "I heard that the Turks, when seized with the distemper,
sometimes wrapped themselves up in a great number of clothes, so that
they sweated heavily, and that this seemed, in some cases, to draw
off the fever, and so the patient recovered."

"That seems a sensible sort of treatment, John, and worth trying with
this Plague."

On calling on Dr. Hodges that afternoon, Cyril found that he had
rightly guessed the nature of the work that the doctor wished him to
perform.

"I can never rely upon the nurses," he said. "I give instructions
with medicines, but in most cases I am sure that the instructions are
never carried out. The relations and friends are too frightened to
think or act calmly, too full of grief for the sick, and anxiety for
those who have not yet taken the illness, to watch the changes in the
patient. As to the nurses, they are often drunk the whole time they
are in the house. Sometimes they fear to go near the sick man or
woman; sometimes, undoubtedly, they hasten death. In most cases it
matters little, for we are generally called in too late to be of any
service. The poor people view us almost as enemies; they hide their