by the bed-side for ten minutes before it is offered.
I am always guided in a great degree about nourishment by the instincts of my patient, and I never force stimulants, or anything equally distasteful on a sick person who is at all reasonable upon such matters. I once had a patient to nurse, whose desperate illness had brought him very near the shadowy land. It had left him, and the doctors assured me that his life depended on how much brandy I could get down his throat during the night. I told him this, for he was quite sensible, when he refused the first teaspoonful, and he whispered in gasps, "I'll take as much milk as you like; that stuff kills me." So I gave him teaspoonfuls of pure milk all through the night every five minutes, and not a drop of brandy. The doctor's first reproachful glance in the morning was at the untouched brandy bottle, and he shook his head, but when he had felt the sick man's pulse his countenance brightened, and he graciously gave me permission to go on with the milk. Of course there are cases when the patient never expresses an opinion one way or other, and then the only safe rule is to obey the doctor's orders, but I never fly in the face of any strong instinct of a sick person rationally expressed.
