Mental nursing / by William Harding.

  • Harding, W. (William Harry), 1941-
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental nursing / by William Harding. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/108
    MENTAL NURSING THE NURSE. The nurse for mental cases must clearly under- stand that the patients with whom she has to< deal are suffering from bodily disease. This is easily recognised in cases of acute insanity. It is when nursing patients whose peculiarities of behaviour appear to be caused as much by perverseness of temper as by illness that it is so difficult to bear this fact in mind. The mental derangement in these latter cases, however, as well as in the more acute forms, is as surely an indication of bodily disease as are the cough and expectoration in cases of lung affections, and the patient must not be held responsible for the one set of symptoms any more'than for the other. The nurse must not be surprised if she meet with ingratitude, or find that her patients will often seek to banish all recollection of her and the illness as an unpleasant memory. Too often she will prove that the consciousness of having done her duty is her only reward. She must even be