One admirable physician makes it a rule never to permit political or religious topics to be canvassed in the hearing of one of his "cases," as a wide experience has taught him that such matters cannot be talked of without causing some degree of excitement, and thus retarding the patient's progress on the road toward health.
For the same reason, try, by every effort, to keep your charge from thinking of work which should be done, and of any possible inconvenience he may be causing.

There never was, and never will be, a convenient time for a person to be ill, so, whenever it comes, resolve to make the best of it.

There is no greater cruelty than that of allowing a sick person to imagine that, but for his ill-timed indisposition, you might be able to go here or there, or to do this or that.

Under such an idea the couch becomes a bed of clipped horse-hairs to the helpless sufferer, and he feels himself to be a useless hulk.

This unkindness is oftentimes unintentional, and due more to thoughtlessness than to deliberate hard-heartedness.