Another point that needs some emphasis is that the housekeeper or her assistant—not the nurses or the servants—must decide when linen is to be discarded. Well-worn or torn linen should not be sent to the wards. A special drawer, marked “Discarded Linen,” should be in the general linen room, and into this the one who sorts linen can lay aside what in her judgment is unfit for wear or beyond mending. But the housekeeper should reserve for herself the privilege of deciding when an article is to be used as old linen. Unless this rule is rigidly enforced, a reckless extravagance will be the result. Good towels will be used as dusters or as scouring cloths. Sheets that might have been utilized in some other way will be torn up and used as cleaning cloths, and a constant depletion of the supply will go on without the housekeeper’s knowledge. Many a housekeeper who has assumed charge of a hospital that had been previously managed without a system of linen accounting has found it one of the most difficult of her tasks to check the tendency to appropriate the hospital towels, sheets and pillow covers for cleaning purposes. Constant vigilance in that direction for months was needed to impress the household that the haphazard, loose way of handling linen was a thing of the past. [Sidenote: Emergency Supply] Every careful hospital housekeeper has found the necessity of a special closet, for the storing of extra linen of all kinds for times of special emergency. It is poor management to have the full supply in circulation at one time. Attention to this emergency closet will save embarrassment many times. What could be more embarrassing than to have a patient injured in an accident, brought in grimy and dirty, and not have a clean gown to put on him? And yet that very thing has happened when the hospital housekeeper has failed to anticipate the emergency. Sheets that are worn thin in the center may be doubled and stitched together for draw sheets, and in that way will last for months. The ends of bath towels can be hemmed for wash cloths. Squares of linen from partly worn tray-cloths and napkins may often be fringed for doilies for ward medicine trays. The training in economy in supplies, and in methods of utilizing material that would otherwise be wasted, is an important part of the nurse’s training that will benefit her through life. [Sidenote: Removing Stains]