A celebrated man, though celebrated only for foolish things, has told us that one of his main objects in the education of his son, was to give him a ready habit of accurate observation, a certainty of perception, and that for this purpose one of his means was a month’s course as follows:—­he took the boy rapidly past a toy-shop; the father and son then described to each other as many of the objects as they could, which they had seen in passing the windows, noting them down with pencil and paper, and returning afterwards to verify their own accuracy.  The boy always succeeded best, e.g., if the father described 30 objects, the boy did 40, and scarcely ever made a mistake.

I have often thought how wise a piece of education this would be for much higher objects; and in our calling of nurses the thing itself is essential.  For it may safely be said, not that the habit of ready and correct observation will by itself make us useful nurses, but that without it we shall be useless with all our devotion.

I have known a nurse in charge of a set of wards who not only carried in her head all the little varieties in the diets which each patient was allowed to fix for himself, but also exactly what each patient had taken during each day.  I have known another nurse in charge of one single patient, who took away his meals day after day all but untouched, and never knew it.

If you find it helps you to note down such things on a bit of paper, in pencil, by all means do so.  I think it more often lames than strengthens the memory and observation.  But if you cannot get the habit of observation one way or other, you had better give up the being a nurse, for it is not your calling, however kind and anxious you may be.

Surely you can learn at least to judge with the eye how much an oz. of solid food is, how much an oz. of liquid.  You will find this helps your observation and memory very much, you will then say to yourself “A. took about an oz. of his meat to day;” “B. took three times in 24 hours about 1/4 pint of beef tea;” instead of saying “B. has taken nothing all day,” or “I gave A. his dinner as usual.”

[Sidenote:  Sound and ready observation essential in a nurse.]

I have known several of our real old-fashioned hospital “sisters,” who could, as accurately as a measuring glass, measure out all their patients’ wine and medicine by the eye, and never be wrong.  I do not recommend this, one must be very sure of one’s self to do it.  I only mention it, because if a nurse can by practice measure medicine by the eye, surely she is no nurse who cannot measure by the eye about how much food (in oz.) her patient has taken.[36] In hospitals those who cut up the diets give with quite sufficient accuracy, to each patient, his 12 oz. or his 6 oz. of meat without weighing.  Yet a nurse will often have patients loathing all food and incapable of any will to get well, who just tumble over the contents of the plate or dip the spoon in the cup to deceive the nurse, and she will take it away without ever seeing that there is just the same quantity of food as when she brought it, and she will tell the doctor, too, that the patient has eaten all his diets as usual, when all she ought to have meant is that she has taken away his diets as usual.