This can be best secured by opening doors or windows, or both, if necessary.  This should be repeatedly done daily in all weathers.  At this season windows should be open all the time; but the patient should not be exposed to heavy draughts of air.  Unnecessary conversation is very distressing to most sick people, even though the words be spoken low or in a whisper.  Some of you, no doubt, have had experience of this fact.  People kindly feel it a duty to visit the sick.  One does not know that another is going, and each being impelled by a sense of duty, more go than can be needed; and in determining who shall return home, and who shall stay, conversations take place that are often very distressing to the patient.  I remember a conversation I had with one of my own patients once, who had just shortly before that time recovered from a severe and protracted illness.  He said to me:  “Brother John, do try to set the people right about visiting the sick.  There is so much wrong about it the way it is carried on now that very often more harm than good is done.  I remember,” said he, “one night while I was sick.  You had been coming, I think, near three weeks, and I was beginning to mend.  In the evening I felt so much better I thought I was going to rest well and get some good, natural sleep.  But about eight o’clock several neighbors came in who got to talking; and seeing that I appeared better they were encouraged to keep on, under the impression that I was strong enough now to stand it.  Ah,” continued he, “they did not know they were almost killing me; for I became restless; and being very weak every nerve and fiber in my body seemed to be excited into a state of distressful commotion, from which I did not fairly recover during the next three days.  When you came again you gave very strict orders not to allow more than one attendant in the room at a time, aside from the nurse; and after that I began to mend again and got well.”

One thing more, and I will leave this feature of the subject.  This, although last in order, is first in importance, because it is the very basis of recovery.  I mean food and drink.  Very sick patients, we all know, can take, and require very little; but that little is all-important both as to quality, and uniformity as to quantity, and exact regularity as to time in its administration.  I will say here with emphasis, that in no regard is it more important to comply punctiliously with the instructions of an intelligent physician, than in the nourishment given the sick.  Without nourishment, recovery in any case is impossible.  How very important, then, that it be rightly composed and properly administered!  Food should be made as attractive to the patient as possible.  This should be carefully kept in mind when preparing it for patients in a state of convalescence or recovery.  The nerves of the stomach at such time are often very sensitive, and small excellencies in its quality will be highly appreciated, and slight deficiencies as readily detected.