To lie abed
half the day, and sew a little and read a little, and be interesting as
invalids and excite sympathy, is all very well, but when they are bidden
to stay in bed a month, and neither to read, write, nor sew, and to have
one nurse, who is not a relative,--then repose becomes for some women a
rather bitter medicine, and they are glad enough to accept the order to
rise and go about when the doctor issues a mandate which has become
pleasantly welcome and eagerly looked for. I do not think it easy to
make a mistake in this matter unless the woman takes with morbid delight
to the system of enforced rest, and unless the doctor is a person of
feeble will. I have never met myself with any serious trouble about
getting out of bed any woman for whom I thought rest needful, but it has
happened to others, and the man who resolves to send any nervous woman
to bed must be quite sure that she will obey him when the time comes for
her to get up.
I have, of course, made use of every grade of rest for my patients, from
repose on a lounge for some hours a day up to entire rest in bed.
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