The Nervous Child

The Nervous Child

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Title: The Nervous Child
Author: Hector Charles Cameron
Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14515]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE NERVOUS CHILD

PUBLISHED BY THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF HENRY FROWDE, HODDER & STOUGHTON 17 WARWICK SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. 4

THE
NERVOUS CHILD
BY
HECTOR CHARLES CAMERON M.A., M.D.(CANTAB.), F.R.C.P.(LOND.) PHYSICIAN TO GUY'S HOSPITAL AND PHYSICIAN IN CHARGE OF THE CHILDREN'S DEPARTMENT, GUY'S HOSPITAL
"RESPECT the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude."--EMERSON.
LONDON HENRY FROWDE HODDER & STOUGHTON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WARWICK SQUARE, E.C. 1920

First Edition 1919 Second Impression 1930

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MORRISON & GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH

PREFACE
To-day on all sides we hear of the extreme importance of Preventive Medicine and the great future which lies before us in this aspect of our work. If so, it follows that the study of infancy and childhood must rise into corresponding prominence. More and more a considerable part of the Profession must busy itself in nurseries and in schools, seeking to apply there the teachings of Psychology, Physiology, Heredity, and Hygiene. To work of this kind, in some of its aspects, this book may serve as an introduction. It deals with the influences which mould the mentality of the child and shape his conduct. Extreme susceptibility to these influences is the mark of the nervous child.
I have to thank the Editors of The Practitioner and of The Child, respectively, for permission to reprint the chapters which deal with "Enuresis" and "The Nervous Child in Sickness." To Dr. F.H. Dodd I should also like to offer thanks for helpful suggestions.
H.C.C.
March 1919.

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. DOCTORS, MOTHERS, AND CHILDREN 1
II. OBSERVATIONS IN THE NURSERY 16
III. WANT OF APPETITE AND INDIGESTION 50
IV. WANT OF SLEEP 64
V. SOME OTHER SIGNS OF NERVOUSNESS 73
VI. ENURESIS 89
VII. TOYS, BOOKS, AND AMUSEMENTS 96
VIII. NERVOUSNESS IN EARLY INFANCY 104
IX. MANAGEMENT IN LATER CHILDHOOD 117
X. NERVOUSNESS IN OLDER CHILDREN 131
XI. NERVOUSNESS AND PHYSIQUE 145
XII. THE NERVOUS CHILD IN SICKNESS 160
XIII. NERVOUS CHILDREN AND EDUCATION ON SEXUAL MATTERS 169
XIV. THE NERVOUS CHILD AND SCHOOL 182
INDEX 191

THE NERVOUS CHILD



CHAPTER I
DOCTORS, MOTHERS, AND CHILDREN
There is an old fairy story concerning a pea which a princess once slept upon--a little offending pea, a minute disturbance, a trifling departure from the normal which grew to the proportions of intolerable suffering because of the too sensitive and undisciplined nervous system of Her Royal Highness. The story, I think, does not tell us much else concerning the princess. It does not tell us, for instance, if she was an only child, the sole preoccupation of her parents and nurses, surrounded by the most anxious care, reared with some difficulty because of her extraordinary "delicacy," suffering from a variety of illnesses which somehow always seemed to puzzle the doctors, though some of the symptoms--the vomiting, for example, and the high temperature--were very severe and persistent. Nor does it tell us if later in life, but before the suffering from the pea arose, she had been taken to consult two famous doctors, one of whom had removed the vermiform appendix, while the other a little later had performed an operation for "adhesions." At any rate, the story with these later additions, which are at least in keeping with what we know of her history, would serve to indicate the importance which attaches to the early training of childhood. Among the children even of the well-to-do often enough the hygiene of the mind is overlooked, and faulty management produces restlessness, instability, and hyper-sensitiveness, which pass insensibly into neuropathy in adult life.
To prevent so distressing a result is our aim in the training of children. No doubt the matter concerns in the first place parents and nurses, school masters and mistresses, as well as medical men. Yet because of the certainty that physical disturbances of one sort or another will follow upon nervous unrest, it will seldom happen that medical advice will not be sought sooner or later; and if the physician is to intervene with success, he must be prepared with knowledge of many sorts. He must be prepared to make a thorough and complete physical examination, sufficient to exclude the presence of organic disease. If no organic disease is found, he must explore the whole environment of the child, and seek to determine whether the exciting cause is to be found in the reaction of the child to some form of faulty management.
For example, a child of