Cut a piece of crusty bread about ¼ lb.; toast gently and uniformly to a light yellow color; then place near the fire, and when of a good brown chocolate, put in a pitcher; pour on it 3 pints boiling water; cover the pitcher, and when cold, strain—it is then ready for use. Never leave the toast in, as it causes fermentation in a short time. A piece of apple, slowly toasted till it gets quite black, and added to the above, makes a very refreshing drink. "TAKING FOOD." "TAKING FOOD." Every careful observer of the sick will agree in this, that thousands of patients are annually starved in the midst of plenty, from want of attention to the ways which alone make it possible for them to take food. This want of attention is as remarkable in those who urge upon the sick to do what is quite impossible to them, as in the sick themselves who will not make the effort to do what is perfectly possible to them. For instance, to the large majority of very weak patients it is quite impossible to take any solid food before 11 A. M., nor then, if their strength is still further exhausted by fasting till that hour. For weak patients have generally feverish nights, and, in the morning, dry mouths; and, if they could eat with those dry mouths, it would be the worse for them. A spoonful of beef-tea, of arrowroot and wine, of egg flip, every hour, will give them the requisite nourishment, and prevent them from being too much exhausted to take at a later hour the solid food, which is necessary for their recovery. And every patient who can swallow at all can swallow these liquid things, if he chooses. But how often do we hear a mutton-chop, an egg, a bit of bacon, ordered to a patient for breakfast, to whom (as a moment's consideration would show us) it must be quite impossible to masticate such things at that hour. Again, a nurse is ordered to give a patient a tea-cup full of some article of food every three hours. The patient's stomach rejects it. If so, try a table-spoonfull every hour; if this will not do, a tea-spoonfull every quarter of an hour. I am bound to say, that I think more patients are lost by want of care and ingenuity in these momentous minutiæ in private nursing than in public hospitals. And I think there is more of the _entente cordiale_ to assist one another's hands between the Doctor and his head Nurse in the latter institutions, than between the doctor and the patient's friends in the private house.