Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].
- Amariah Brigham
- Date:
- 1844
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
77/166 (page 71)
![The foregoing account fails to describe the amount of mental labour required of many children in intelli- gent and respectable farailies.'l^ The injurious and sometimes fatal effects of such treatment have been already mentioned. But I cannot forbear again to state that I have myself seen many children who were supposed to possess almost miracu- lous mental powers, experiencing these effects and sinking under them. Some of them died early, when but six or eight years of age, but manifested, to the last, a maturity of understanding which only increased the agony of a separation. Their minds, like some of the fairest flowers, were “no sooner blown than blast- ed.” Others have grown up to manhood, but with • feeble bodies and a disordered nervous system, which subjected them to hypochondriasis, dyspepsia, and all the Protean forms of nervous disease. Their minds, in some cases, remained active, but their earthly tene- ments were frail indeed. Others of the class of early prodigies, and 1 believe the most numerous portion, exhibit in manhood but small mental powers, and are the mere passive instruments of those who in early life were accounted far their inferiors. Of this fact I am assured, not only by the authority of books, and my child is properly brought up, and has arrived at the period when it can comprehend parental authority, no lure whatever is required to make it do what is right. The word of a parent is with it a law', which it will hardly dare to disobey. Whenever children above tw'o years of age are turbulent, disobedient, rude, and unmanageable the fault, in almost every cast’, lies with their parents —R. M.] * [46 Tlie intellirjence of such families is surely more than anoer”- phal.-R. M.J ■'](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22026514_0077.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
