X. HOW SHALL A NURSE OCCUPY HER DAYS OF WAITING? XI. SOME HINTS FOR THE OBSTETRICAL NURSE XII. AS TO WASHING THE BABY XIII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW I THE NURSE AND HER PATIENT You may think it unnecessary for me to tell you any more about "the patient." You will say, perhaps: "Have I had all this training, and must I yet be told how to treat a patient?" I answer that you have been taught how to watch the progress of disease, how to follow intelligently the doctor's orders, also certain manual arts, your proficiency in which is unquestionably most necessary, but there is much more comprehended in the meaning of the term "a good nurse" than this. How often do we hear stories of nurses who were good--_but_--who were skillful--_but_-- and after the _but_ comes a long list of such faults as do not show so much in hospital life, where the routine and the many rules and the constant supervision make them less likely to become prominent. "She bangs the doors." "She breaks the fine china." "She wears heavy shoes," or "She talks too much," or "She is pretty and spends too much time over her front hair"--but why go on? You have all heard such tales--_ad nauseam_, and if you are wise, you will set up a sign-post against every one of these snares into which your sister nurses have fallen, and on this you will print in large, clear letters: "Danger! Walking on this place forbidden." So much by way of apology for treating you once more to a lecture on "the patient." The relation between nurse and patient should, from the first, be a more than amicable one. You have come to bestow the priceless blessing of unwearied, skillful care upon one who should thankfully receive it, and believe me, if you do not go to your patient with a feeling of thankfulness to God for allowing you to assume such a sacred trust as the care of a human life, you are in no condition to undertake the work. Your nursing should be, in a way, an exponent of your own spiritual state; looking at it in its highest aspect, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.