engagements. This is most important advice. A lady frequently has to put up with an indifferent nurse from neglecting to engage her betimes. The medical man at the eleventh hour is frequently besought to perform an impossibility-to select a good nurse, and which he could readily have done if time had been given him to make the selection. Some of my best nurses are engaged by my patients as early as two or three months after the latter have conceived, in order to make sure of having their favourite nurses. My patients are quite right; a good nurse is quite of as much importance to her well-doing as is a good doctor; indeed, a bad nurse oftentimes makes a good doctor's efforts perfectly nugatory.

585. It is always desirable, whenever it be possible, that the doctor in attendance should himself select the monthly nurse, as she will then be used to his ways, and he will know her antecedents-whether she be sober, temperate, and kind, and that she understand her business, and whether she be in the habit of attending and of following out his directions, for frequently a nurse is self-opinionated, and fancies that she knows far better than the medical man. Such a nurse is to be scrupulously avoided. There cannot be two masters in a lying-in room; if there be, the unfortunate patient will inevitably be the sufferer. A doctor's directions must be carried out to the very letter. It rests with the patient to select a judicious medical man, who, although he will be obeyed, will be kind and considerate to the nurse.

586. A monthly nurse ought to be in a house for a week or ten days before the commencement of the labour, in order that there may be neither bustle nor excitement, and no hurrying to and fro at the last moment to find her; and that she may have everything prepared, and the linen well aired for the coming event.

587. She must never be allowed, unless ordered by the medical man, to give either the patient or the babe a particle of medicine. A quacking monthly nurse is an abomination. An infant who is everlastingly being drugged by a nurse is sure to be puny and ailing.

588. A monthly nurse ought to understand the manner of putting on and of tightening the bandage after a confinement. This, every night and morning, she must do. The doctor generally does it the first time himself, viz., immediately after the labour. It requires a little knack, and if the nurse be at all awkward in the matter, the medical man will be only too happy to show her the way, for he is quite aware

the support, the comfort, and the advantage it will be to his patient, and he will be glad to know that the nurse herself will be able to continue putting it on properly for some weeks -for at least three weeks after the lying-in.

589. If nurses better understood the right method of bandaging patients after their labours, there would not be so many ladies with pendulous bellies and with ungainly figures. It is a common remark that a lady's figure is spoiled in consequence of her having had so many children. This, provided efficient bandaging after every confinement had been resorted to, ought not to be. But then, if a monthly nurse is to do those things properly, she ought to be efficiently trained, and many of them have little or no training; hence the importance of choosing one who thoroughly knows and will conscientiously do her duty.

590. A monthly nurse who understands her business will always have the lying-in room tidy, cheerful, and well-ventilated. She will not allow dirty linen to accumulate in the drawers, in corners, and under the bed; nor will she allow any chamber utensil to remain for one moment in the room after it has been used. If it be winter, she will take care that the fire in the grate never goes out, and that it is not very large, and that the room is kept as nearly as possible at one temperature-namely, at 60° Fahrenheit. She will use her authority as a nurse, and keep the other children from frequently running into the room, and from exciting and disturbing her mistress, and she will make a point of taking charge of the babe, and of keeping him quiet while the mother, during the day, is having her needful sleep.

591. A good monthly nurse fully comprehends and thoroughly appreciates the importance of bathing the external parts concerned in parturition every night and morning, and sometimes even oftener, for at least two or three weeks after childbirth. And, if the medical man deem it necessary, she ought to understand the proper manner of using a vaginal syringe. If the nurse be self-opinionated, and tries to persuade her mistress not to have proper ablution-that such ablution will give cold-she is both ignorant and prejudiced, and quite unfit for a monthly nurse; and my advice is, that a lady ought on no account to engage such a person a second time.

592. I need not now, as in another part of this work I have entered so fully on the vital importance of ablution after childbirth, say more than again to urge my fair reader

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to see that the monthly nurse properly carries it out, and that if there be any objections made to it by the nurse, the medical man be appealed to in the matter, and let his judgment be final. Assured I am, that every doctor who understands his profession will agree with me, that the regular ablutions of the parts after a labour is absolutely indispensable. The nurse, of course, will take care to guard the bed from being wet, and will not expose the patient unnecessarily during the process; she will be quick over it, and she will have in readiness soft, warm, dry towels to speedily dry the parts that have been bathed. The above is most important advice, and I hope that my fair inquirer will engage a monthly nurse that will do her duty in the matter.

593. Before concluding a list of some of the duties of a monthly nurse, there are six more pieces of advice I wish to give both to a wife and to a monthly nurse herself, which are these:(1.) Never to allow a nurse, until she be ordered by the doctor, to give either brandy, or wine, or porter, or ale to the patient. (2.) I should recommend every respectable monthly nurse to carry about with her an india-rubber vaginal syringe. One of the best for the purpose is Higginson's syringe, which is one constructed to act either as an enema apparatus, or, by placing the vaginal pipe over the enema pipe, a vaginal syringe. She will thus be armed at all points, and will be ready for any emergency. It is an admirable invention and cannot be too well known. (3.) I should advise a nurse never to quack either the mother or the babe. A quacking nurse is a dangerous individual. The only person that should prescribe for either mother or babe is the medical man himself. A nurse has no business to course upon a doctor's preserves. She should remember that he is the one to give orders, as he, in the lying-in room, is the commanderin-chief, and must be obeyed. (4.) A monthly nurse ought to make a point of never revealing the private concerns of her former mistresses. It would be a great breach of confidence for her to do so. (5.) I should advise a monthly nurse, if her lying-in patient's head should ache and she cannot

*There are other india-rubber apparatuses besides Higginson's which will answer a similar purpose. They are sometimes made with two separate and distinct pipes, the one of which is to be used in the administration of an enema, and the other for giving an injection up the vagina, or for washing out the vagina with warm water. The best quality of apparatus ought always to be chosen. C. Mackintosh & Co.'s Patent Vaginal Syringe (No. 2 size) is a capital vaginal syringe; but it will only act as a vaginal; whilst Higginson's and some others will act a double purpose-either as an enema or as a vaginal syringe.

sleep, and it should be in the winter time, to feed the bedroom fire with her hands covered with gloves, and not with the tongs, as the clatter of fire-irons is often an effectual method of banishing sleep altogether, and of increasing a headache. This advice may appear trivial, but it is really important. I have known patients disturbed out of a beautiful sleep by the feeding of the fire, and it is therefore well to guard against such a contingency-sleep after labour being most soothing, refreshing, and strengthening to the patient. Sleep, although easily scared and put to flight, is sometimes difficult to woo and to win. (6.) I should recommend every monthly nurse, while waiting upon her mistress, to wear either list slippers or the rubber slippers, as creaking shoes are very irritating to a patient. "Nurses at these times should wear slippers and not shoes. The best slippers in sick rooms are those manufactured by the North British Rubber Company, Edinburgh; they enable nurses to walk in them about the room without causing the slightest noise; indeed, they may be called 'the noiseless slipper'-a great desideratum in such cases, more especially in all head affections of children. If the above slippers cannot readily be obtained, then list slippers-soles and all being made of list-will answer the purpose equally as well."-(Advice to a Mother.) While speaking on the duties of a monthly nurse, there is one reprehensible practice of some few of them I wish to denounce, which is this: A nurse declaring at each pain, when it will probably be two or three hours before the labour is over, that two or three pains will be all that are needed! Now, this is folly, it is most disheartening, and makes the patient impatient, and to believe in bitterness of spirit that all men,' ," and women, too, "are liars." A nurse should take her cue from the doctor, and if he should happen to be a sensible man, he will tell his patient the truth, and express an opinion how long it will be before she is likely to be delivered. Truth in this, as in everything else, is the safest and the best!

594. A lady may, perhaps, say, "You want a nurse to be perfection?" Well, I do; a nurse ought to be as near perfection as poor human nature will allow. None but good women and true should enter the ranks of nurses; for their responsibility is great, and their power of doing either good or evil is enormous. Hence good nurses are prizeable, and should be paid most liberally.

595. The selection of a nurse is, for the well-being both of

mother and of babe, quite as important as is the choice of a doctor; indeed, I do not know whether she is not of more importance. Mother and babe are thoroughly dependent upon her for the airing of clothes, for due but careful ablution, and for other most important services.

596. I hope, then, I have said enough-I am quite sure that I have not said one word too much-on the care required in the selection of a monthly nurse. It is impossible, when such important interests are at stake, to be too particular, or to overstate its importance.

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON PREGNANCY.

597. The premonitory symptoms of labour having now commenced; everything being in readiness for the coming event; clothes, sheets, flannels, diapers, all well aired, everything in order, so that each and all may, even in the dark, at a moment's notice, be found; the bedroom well ventilated; the nurse being in the house; the doctor notified that he might be wanted; all the patient has now to do is to keep up her spirits, and to look forward with confidence and hope to that auspicious moment which has been long expected, and which is now about arriving, when she will be made a mother! and which event-the birth of her child, ushered as he is into the world with a cry (Oh, joyful sound!)-she will realise as the happiest period of her existence; she will then be amply repaid for all her cares, all her anxiety, and all her anguish : "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world."-St. John.

598. A wife is now about to assume an additional and higher title than that of Wifehood, namely, that of Motherhood; but before doing so, she will have a painful ordeal to go through; which is truly called "Labour; " and which I purpose dwelling on at large in the next Part-Part III.