The Nervous Child
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.
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that good temper and happiness mean a proper environment, and that constant crying and fretfulness, broken sleep, refusal of food, vomiting, undue thinness, and extreme timidity often indicate that something in this direction is at fault.
Nevertheless, we must be careful not to overstate our case. We must remember how great is the diversity of temperament in children--a diversity which is produced purely by hereditary factors. The task of all mothers is by no means of equal difficulty. There are children in whom quite gross faults in training produce but little permanent damage; there are others of so sensitive a nervous organisation that their environment requires the most delicate adjustment, and when matters have gone wrong, it may be very difficult to restore health of mind and body. When a peculiarly nervous temperament is inherited, wisdom in the management of the child is essential, and may sometimes achieve the happiest results. Heredity is so powerful a factor in the development of the nervous or
