We sometimes speak of one woman as a born nurse, and say of another, "She's a good nurse, thoroughly conscientious, but not a natural one like Miss X." It only means that Miss X's main purpose in life has always been caring for the sick, while Miss Y's secondary concern is that. There is a third, however, who may be sidetracked into nursing, but whose chiefest interest and attention in life has not been so much a certain profession or accomplishment, but a passion for people, with an ability to enter into their lives understandingly. She may not care for nursing in itself. It is only accidental that her thoughts were turned to it. But her liking for people makes it easier for her to concentrate attention on the details of nursing, as thereby she is fulfilling her life's ambition in studying and serving human beings. She may be a real success if she can only convince herself that this is her forte. If not, and she dreams of other fields of service, her concentration on the thing at hand is not perfect enough for her to compete successfully with the "born nurse." Whatever it is, the thing that gets our chief attention is the most important to us. It may be lack of appetite, or pain in the side, indigestion, general disability, discomfort, the mistreatment we once received, the mistake we once made, or the sin we committed--whatever it is that holds our attention, it is the most absorbing and interesting thing in the universe, though it may be an utterly morbid interest, an unhappy attention. But it blots out for the time the rest of the world. A big hint for the nurse exists therein. Let her try in every lawful way to divert her patient's attention from the disease-breeding stimuli toward the happy and wholesome ones. For the nurse herself in the care of patients let us draw some conclusions from these laws of the mind's working: 1. Have a goal in view for the patient's health of both body and mind. 2. Work toward instilling in your patient a health ambition--a pride in health. 3. Remember that overcrowding the mind defeats your purpose of making one clear impression. 4. Win interest by any legitimate means to the next step toward the goal, and only the next. 5. Work for attention to hopeful, courageous, and happy things.