Chapter I: 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