Permit me to insist upon that word _uninterruptedly_. Few people realize the full evil of an interruption, few people know all that is implied by it. After warning nurses against the evils of interruption, Florence Nightingale says:-- "These things are not fancy. If we consider that, with sick as with well, every thought decomposes some nervous matter--that decomposition as well as re-composition of nervous matter is always going on, and more quickly with the sick than with the well,--that to obtrude another thought upon the brain whilst it is in the act of destroying nervous matter by thinking, is calling upon it to make a new exertion--if we consider these things, which are facts, not fancies, we shall remember that we are doing positive injury by interrupting, by startling a 'fanciful' person, as it is called. Alas, it is no fancy. "If the invalid is forced by his avocations to continue occupations requiring much thinking, the injury is doubly great. In feeding a patient suffering under delirium or stupor you may suffocate him by giving him his food suddenly, but if you rub his lips gently with a spoon and thus attract his attention, he will swallow the food unconsciously, but with perfect safety. Thus it is with the brain. If you offer it a thought, especially one requiring a decision, abruptly, you do it a real, not fanciful, injury. Never speak to a sick person suddenly; but, at the same time, do not keep his expectation on the tiptoe." To this you will already have answered, mentally, that you are not a patient suffering under either delirium or stupor, and that nobody needs to rub your lips gently with a spoon. But Miss Nightingale does not consider interruption baneful to sick persons only. "This rule indeed," she continues, "applies to the well quite as much as to the sick. _I have never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant interruption who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last._ The process, with them, may be accomplished without pain. With the sick, pain gives warning of the injury."