Nurses have a Province of their own, in which they are very valuable, that is, a diligent attentive Care; for in vain do Parents seek Advice, in vain do Physicians prescribe, if Nurses are negligent, unwatchful, or careless. But while I do them the Justice they deserve, while I acknowledge the Merit of their Station, and recommend that it be rewarded, I cannot help repeating to Parents, not to suffer them to baffle superior Knowledge. If any Change happens to the Patient, or a Difficulty arises unforeseen, let them suspend for a Time the Execution of the Orders given them; but let them not frustrate the Physician’s Intention, by throwing Medicines away, giving them by Halves, or giving something of their own added to it, or in it’s stead; and then concealing what they have done: all these things are grievously wrong, and every way unjustifiable, as they frequently disappoint the Patient, or disgrace the Physician. If a Nurse has made any useful Observation on the Patient (which all good Nurses sometimes will) there is not a Doctor in the Kingdom, if a Man of Sense, but will hear her, and turn it to Advantage; but if her Conceit leads her to set aside or overturn what is proposed, however merry it may make herself, every thinking Person in the World must condemn so capital an Error. The last Caution I shall give to Parents relative to Health, is, the Danger of Nostrums and Quack-Medicines. I believe there is not a Physician nor an Apothecary in the Kingdom but what has seen the Lives of People, particularly of Children, sacrificed to this Practice. What is it that constitutes the Physician, that proves the Man of Judgment, but the varying his Prescriptions, not only according to different Diseases, but according to the different Circumstances of the same Disease? And yet these Nostrum-Mongers, with unparalell’d Boldness, often attempt to conquer all Diseases with one Arcanum, one pretended Remedy. Who that hears these Boasters, or that reads their printed Accounts, but must discover many Absurdities on the very Face of them. The Man that promises what is repugnant to common Sense, argues himself either a Knave or a Fool; and yet People are often so little attentive, or so regardless of Health, that they do not discover their Error, ’till it is sometimes too late to remedy it. That I may do strict Justice to every one, I am ready to grant, that many Discoveries have been made in Medicine by mere Accident; and that some of the Nostrums in Vogue are in themselves good; nay some of them were the Discoveries of able Physicians; Discoveries since seiz’d on by designing People, and pirated into a kind of Property. But what does all this avail in the Hands of ignorant People? What is a Man the wiser for being placed in a Repository of the finest Drugs, if he knows not how to apply them? Or wherein does he differ from one set in a Library of the choicest Books, without being able to read? Yet are People