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 r