The cyclopaedia of practical medicine : comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc. / Edited by John Forbes, Alexander Tweedie, John Conolly.

Date:: 1848

Credit: The cyclopaedia of practical medicine : comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc. / Edited by John Forbes, Alexander Tweedie, John Conolly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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$natural good temper, when the distress is relieved, calmness returns; but if the temper be naturally irritable, this becomes aroused by the pains en- dured, and especially if under its sufferings the child be harshly or unkindly treated: so that even when the bodily distress ceases, equanimity is not restored. Children cry from pain \ they cry also from passion ; and no tones can be more distinct than those which express the respective feelings. The one should be promptly quieted by removing the cause of pain ; the other is less speedily cor- rigible, requiring both time and a system of sound moral discipline, to prevent habits of irritability acquiring strength by reiterated excitement. When the natural temper is irritable, causes of irritation should be carefully avoided ; the irritability should be calmly but steadily repressed ; other faculties of the mind, too, should be called forth, as indi- rectly suspending the exercise of the irritable feel- ings ; and according as the mental powers be- come progressively developed, the higher senti- ments and intellectual faculties should be so cultivated as to ensure them that predominance over the animal propensities which the Creator has allotted to them, and on the maintenance of which all virtue and happiness depend. To ex- ercise this controlling power in due time is the greatest good which the infant can experience ; it lays the foundation of all moral improvement, and cannot be too early commenced. No error can be more pernicious in its consequences than to be reckless of exciting the passions of chil- dren, without considering how they are to be al- layed. Some have been so misguided as wantonly to excite such passions in order to habituate the parties to self-control; but this error is so mis- chievous, and so irreconcilable with all sound principle, that it must be of rare occurrence. Even carelessness, however, in this respect is in- excusable ; and no child should be subjected to any irritation that can be avoided. Frequent ex- citement will, in the naturally irritable, confirm ill temper, while it will endanger the establishment of it, even in those who are naturally more calm. Irritability of temper in children should be re- garded rather in the light of a disease to be reme- died, than of a fault to be punished. They are as nature made them, and no more accountable for irritability of temper than for a weak digestion or other bodily infirmity. The possession of an irritable temper is a misfortune rather than a fault, and the being so unhappily circumstanced merits pity rather than reproof. All the assist- ance which kindness and sympathy can render should be given in support of the struggles which such a being has to maintain within his own breast. Imperturbable calmness is required in the government of children, who readily distinguish whether reproof or punishment proceed from ex- cited passion, or are resorted to solely for their correction or improvement. This discussion, how- ever, must terminate here. Enough has been said to mark the close connection that subsists between moral discipline and physical welfore. Tranquil- lity of mind is essential to good health, and the government of the passions is important towards attaining the ends of physical education. In rearing children it is necessary to bear in mind the force of habit, by which, in many parts of the animal economy, regularity is maintained with a precision which the dictates of reason could never command. Many of the bodily functions are signally under its influence ; and on the prin- ciple that activity gives vigour, while quiescence leads to abatement of energy, much of moral dis- cipline may be founded on the formation of habits during those early years when the self-controlling powers of the individual are yet but imperfectly developed. In respect of food, of sleep, of the alvine discharges, a disposition to periodic recur- rence is clearly discernible ; and by attending to it, regularity of the respective functions may be sensibly promoted. Fixed periods for taking food are desirable, and they should be frequent. It is unwise to load the stomach with fresh food until the previous meal has been digested and passed onward to the intestines. From this error the gastric and intestinal irritations of infancy often- times proceed. Regular habits of evacuating the bowels, if duly established, have much effect in superseding the use of medicine. So prone are the bowels to make at certain periods efforts for their own relief, that if from any cause the periodic impulse be resisted, the effort ceases, and is not again actively renewed until the next revolving period arrives; accumulations, productive both of inconvenience and injury, going on during the interval. It seems needless to pursue further the consideration of infancy. What has been said furnishes sufficient guidance for conducting the ordinary management of health, and for guarding against the errors to which this stage of life is exposed. So many of the principles inculcated in the foregoing inquiry apply to the next stage, or that of childhood, that this may be more briefly discussed. [See a Treatise on the Physiological and Moral Treatment of Infancy, by A. Combe, M. D., Amer. edit, by Dr. J. Bell: Philad. 1840.] Childhood.—In considering the stage of child- hood, we shall, for the sake of method, pursue the same arrangement that was followed in treating of infancy, without deeming it necessary, how- ever, to dwell more circumstantially on any point than its merits may specially require. The clothing of childhood should possess the same properties as that of infancy. It should afford due warmth, be of such materials as do not irritate the skin, and so made as to occasion no unnatural constriction. On the feeding of children their health is much dependent; and in this respect injury is often done from regulating their diet according to some preconceived system founded on partial expe- rience or imperfect observation. Children, to support their natural growth, require ample suste- nance, and this admitted truth is with many a sufficient reason for overloading their stomachs, and with food of too nutritious a kind. Others again, from having seen healthy children reared on a low diet, and, also from having occasionally witnessed disease brought on by excess of animal food, unaware, too, of the hazard of generalising from insufficient facts, hastily conclude that low diet is wholesome, and animal food prejudicial. No exclusive system can in this respect be right, nor can any precise rule of diet be possibly laid down, as this requires to be adapted in every case to the particular constitution concerned. It has$