The healthy girl / by Mrs. Joseph Cunning ... and A. Campbell.

  • Cunning, Annie Broomhall, 1879-
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The healthy girl / by Mrs. Joseph Cunning ... and A. Campbell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    since nerves are material things, they are often best treated by material means. I have so often seen mothers and schoolmistresses trying to correct faults in girls by “influence,” and “talking,” when something is really at fault in the child’s body. If we would only treat body with mind, we would not so often demand impossibilities for ourselves and other people. Very many faults in character can be directly traced to a faulty nervous system, and we are far wiser to go for the causes of this first. The soundness of the nervous system will depend very largely on two factors, a just balance between rest and activity, and good food (1.2., the blood which supplies the nerves should contain what they require, and nothing poisonous). Rest and actwity.—Sleep and exercise are big subjects, demanding a chapter each. It may be said, however, that when nervous trouble exists we should make sure that we are not overdoing things. We may be getting too little sleep, or we may be giving ourselves too little quiet. Girls and women are apt to rush off to one another to “talk things over,’ when what they really need is to be quiet and alone. One pitifully excitable girl who was in my form, and a difficulty both to herself and to other people, I asked to help me in the science room, and whenever she was finding things very difficult, we had no argument or discussion, but there was a lot of washing up to do! Gardening, mending, drawing, are all helpful in the same way, for rest from nerve tension need not mean idleness. A girl who is worried or overworked will often be able to rest far
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