Though many well-regulated hospitals have a medicine cabinet in every ward, the custom does not generally prevail, nor is it desirable that it should. The less a patient knows, sees or thinks of medicine, except the dose intended for him at the time, the better. The custom of hanging clinical records over the foot or at the head of the bed is another custom that might better be abandoned, even though it be very convenient for the nurse. Patients are only too prone to meditate upon and discuss their symptoms, in spite of all efforts to induce them to trust themselves entirely to doctors and nurses, and cease questioning and worry. Some sympathizing friend or convalescent patient may be depended upon to keep them informed when an unpleasant symptom is recorded. This will occur in spite of all rules and vigilance. It is not easy under any circumstances to keep ward patients from discussing their ailments and symptoms. Especially is this true in women’s wards. In men’s wards the newspapers are read, the political situation is discussed, city improvements and occurrences are talked about, all sorts of subjects occupy the time of those who are able to talk, but a different state of things entirely prevails in the women’s wards. What they get to eat, how they feel, and the nurses and doctors furnish the general topics there. To have a clinical record to gossip about might divert attention from the nurses and doctors, but even these long-suffering individuals would willingly sacrifice themselves as a topic of conversation rather than have the patients read the records and constantly discuss their symptoms. [Sidenote: Adjuncts to the Hospital Ward] The tendency in modern hospitals is in favor of smaller wards, as affording better facilities for proper classification and separation of patients. A nurses’ utility room adjoining every large ward or located conveniently near two or three small wards, where medicines, clinical records, supply charts and blanks, order books and the memorandum books necessary for ward work are kept, is a much appreciated convenience in some hospitals. Opening off this room is the ward diet kitchen, where the refrigerator and food supplies for the ward are kept, and the facilities for quick preparation of special diets for individual patients. [Sidenote: Quiet Room]