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Healthful Living

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Chapter 37—The Missionary Nurse

Need of Nurses

1060. In almost every church there are young men and women who might receive an education either as physicians or nurses. They will never have a more favorable opportunity than now. I would urge that this subject be considered prayerfully, that special effort be made to select those youth who give promise of usefulness and moral strength. Let these receive an education at our Sanitarium at Battle Creek, to go out as missionaries wherever the Lord may call them to labor.—The Medical Missionary, 216. HL 249.1

Qualifications of Nurses

1061. I could wish that there were one hundred nurses in training where there is one. It ought to be thus. Both men and women can be much more useful as medical missionaries than as missionaries without a medical education.—The Medical Missionary, 215. HL 249.2

1062. Attendants should be cheerful and hopeful.—How to Live 3:54. HL 249.3

1063. The attendants should be unhurried, calm, and self-possessed.—How to Live 4:59. HL 249.4

1064. The mother may be an intelligent nurse and physician of her own dear children. It is her right to have an understanding of her own and her children's organisms, that she may know how to treat her children in sickness.—The Health Reformer, June 1, 1873. HL 249.5

The Nurse's Duty to Herself

1065. It is the duty of attendants and nurses in the sick-room to have a special care for their own health, especially in critical cases of fever and consumption. One person should not be kept closely confined to the sick-room. It is safer to have two or three to depend upon, who are careful and understanding nurses, these alternating and sharing the care and confinement of the sick-room. Each should have exercise in the open air as often as possible. This is important to sick-bed attendants, especially if the friends of the sick are among that class who continue to regard air, if admitted into the sick-room, as an enemy, and will not allow the windows raised or the doors opened. The sick and the attendants are in this case compelled to breathe the atmosphere from day to day, because of the inexcusable ignorance of the friends of the sick.—How to Live 4:56. HL 250.1

1066. If attendants are awake to the subject of health, and realize the necessity of ventilation for their own benefit, as well as that of the patient, and the relatives, as well as the sick, oppose the admission of air and light into the sick-room, the attendants should have no scruples of conscience in leaving the sick-room. They should feel themselves released from their obligations to the sick. It is not the duty of one or more to risk the liability of incurring disease and endangering their lives by breathing the poisonous atmosphere. If the sick will fall victims to their own erroneous ideas, and will shut out of the room the most essential of heaven's blessings, let them do so, but not at the peril of those who ought to live.—How to Live 4:57. HL 250.2

Suggestions to Nurses

1067. It is of great value to the sick to have an even temperature in the room. This cannot always be correctly determined, if left to the judgment of attendants, for they may not be the best judges of a right temperature.—How to Live 4:54. HL 251.1

1068. Few realize the effect of a mild, firm manner, even in the care of an infant. The fretful, impatient mother or nurse creates peevishness* in the child in her arms, whereas a gentle manner tends to quiet the nerves of the little one.—The Health Reformer, November 1, 1878. HL 251.2

1069. Where there are two watchers, they often converse together, sometimes aloud, but more frequently in whispered tones, which is far more trying and exciting to the nerves of the sick than talking aloud.... Attendants upon the sick should, if possible, leave them to quiet and rest through the night, while they occupy a room adjoining. All unnecessary noise and excitement should be avoided in the sick-room, and the whole house should be kept as quiet as possible. Ignorance, forgetfulness, and recklessness have caused the death of many who might have lived had they received proper care from judicious, thoughtful attendants.—How to Live 4:59. HL 251.3