areful
watching during the drowsy condition that follows sleep in a warm bed
will succeed in stopping the practice of thigh rubbing before the end
of the second or third year. Apparatus designed to restrain movement
of the child's legs or blistering the opposed surfaces of the thighs
are both of no effect. They have indeed the positive disadvantage that
they focus the child's attention on the practice. The habit ceases
only when the child has forgotten all about it, and these devices
serve only to keep it in remembrance. The same may be said of any
system of punishments. Further, we cannot always have the child under
observation, and at some time or other opportunity will be found for
gratification. Of older children, in whom self-control and a sense of
honour can be cultivated, I am not here speaking.

Air swallowing is less common than thigh rubbing, but belongs to the
same group of actions and takes place in the same drowsy condition.
The child will rapidly gulp down air which distends the stomach, and
is then regurgitated with a loud sound. Thumb sucking seldom
distresses the mother to the same extent, and the proper attitude of
tolerance is adopted towards it. If much is made of it, it is
astonishing how persistent the habit may become, surviving all
attempts to forbid it, to break it by rewards or punishments, or to
render it distasteful by the application of a variety of ill-tasting
substances smeared on the offending digit.

PICA AND DIRT EATING

Certain other bad habits will become ingrained if attention is called
to them, because of that curious spirit of opposition which
characterises little children, and because of their susceptibility to
suggestion. Some children will constantly pluck out hairs and eat
them, or will devour particles of fluff drawn from the blankets.
Others will seize every opportunity to eat unpleasant things, such as
earth, sand, mud, or dirt of any sort. All tricks of this sort are
best neglected and treated by attracting the child's attention to
other things. In adult life they are associated with serious mental
disturbance, in early childhood they are of little account, or at most
suggest a certain nervousness which may be due to nervous irritation
from faults of management which we must strive to correct.

CONSTIPATION

As has been already mentioned, much of the common constipation of the
nursery is due to neurosis. The excessive concentration of the nurse's
thoughts on this d