EPILEPSY, HYSTERIA, AND NEURASTHENIA
THEIR CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, & TREATMENT
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: This work is presented for historical interest and subject background only. Many of the conclusions, attitudes, and treatments discussed here are those of an "expert" of another era, many of which have been overturned by science or are not acceptable in today's world.
[pg 98]
CHAPTER XXI
TRAINING THE NERVOUS CHILD
"When shall I begin to train my child?" said a young mother to an old doctor.
"How old is the child, madam?"
"Two years, sir!"
"Then, madam, you have lost just two years," answered the old physician, gravely.
Neuropathic children are super-emotional, and from them come prodigies, geniuses, perverts and madmen. They are usually spare of build, with pale, sallow complexions, and dark rings under the eyes.
They can never sit still, but wriggle restlessly about on their seats, pick their nostrils, and bite their nails. They are always wanting to be doing something, but soon tire of it, and start something else, which is as quickly cast aside; their energy is feverish but fitful. They jump to conclusions, quickly grasp ideas; as quickly forget them. Having no capacity for calm, reasoned judgment, they are creatures of impulse, imperative but timid, suffer from strange ideas, and worry over trifles.
The affections are strong and vehement, likes and dislikes are taken without reason, while intense personal attachments—often unrequited—occur, but not seldom swing round to indifference, or even bitter enmity. The passions and emotions are all abnormal, for owing to deficiency in the higher inhibitory centres, the victim is blown about by every idle emotional wind that blows. The slightest irritation may provoke [pg 99] an outburst of maniacal rage, or a fit. Consequently, they require the most careful, but firm training, right from birth, to bring them up with a minimum of nerve-strain. Twitchings, night or day terrors, sleep walking, and incontinence of urine often trouble them. They should be examined by a doctor once a year.
These children have no balance, and are usually selfish, always garrulous, with a love of romancing, while a ready wit combined with fertile imagination often gains them a bubble reputation for learning they do not possess. Invention, poetry, music, artistic taste and originality are occasionally of a high order, and the memory is sometimes phenomenal; but desultory, half-finished work, and shiftlessness are the rule.
Their appetite is fitful and fanciful, they like unsuitable foods, and their digestive system is easily upset. At puberty, sexual perversity is common, and the animal appetite, is as a rule, very strong, though rarely, it may be absent. During adolescence, there is excessive shyness or bravado, always introspection, and exaggerated self-consciousness.
As they grow older, they readily contract hypochondria, neurasthenia, hysteria, alcoholism, insomnia and drug habits, and react unduly to the most trifling external causes, even to the weather, by which they are exhilarated or depressed.
Education. Send them to school only when the law compels you, and observe them closely while there, for health is far more important to them than education. "Infant prodigies" lack the mental staying power and physical robustness which real success demands, though they may do well for a time. Go to your old school: the successes of to-day were dunces twenty years ago; about those whose names are proudly emblazoned in fading gold on Rolls of Honour, a discreet silence is maintained.
Keep a keen lookout for symptoms of over-effort. [pg 100] Sleepiness, languor, a vacant expression, forehead wrinkled, eyebrows knit, eyes dull, sunken and surrounded by dark rings, twitchings, restlessness, or loss of appetite are all warnings that the pace is too strong for the child.
"These are the cases in which the School Board—who ordain that if children are well enough to play or run errands, they are well enough to attend school—should be defied."This defiance must of course be reinforced by a doctor's certificate.
To the healthy, the strain of preparing for and enduring an examination is tremendous; to highly strung children it is dangerous. Home-work should be forbidden in spite of the authorities. Let the child join in the sports of the school as much as possible.
School misdemeanours form a thorny problem, for discipline must be maintained, and a stern but just discipline is very wholesome for this type, who are too apt to assume that because they are abnormal, they can be idle and refractory. On the other hand, parents should promptly and vigorously object to their children being punished for errors in lessons, or struck on the head.
Diet. Food, while being nourishing, and easily digested, must not be stimulating or "pappy". Meat, condiments, tea, coffee and alcohol are highly undesirable, a child's beverage being milk and water.
Meals should be ready at regular hours, and capricious appetites should freely be humoured among suitable foods, served in appetizing form to tempt the palate. Let them chatter, but see they do not get the time to talk by bolting their food.
Most children can chew properly soon after they are two, but they are never taught. Their food is [pg 101] "mushy", or is carefully cut, and gives them no incentive to masticate. So long as food is digestible, the harder it is the better, and plain biscuits, raw fruits, and foods like "Grape Nuts", are splendid. Mastication helps digestion; it also prevents nasal troubles.
The desire for food at odd moments causes trouble, which is aggravated if the meals are not ready at stated hours. Gently but firmly refuse the piece of bread-and-butter they crave, explain why you do so, and though they weep, or fly into a passion, do not lose your own temper, or beat, or give way to them. When accustomed to regular hours and firm refusals they will not crave for titbits between meals.
It is very hard for them to see other members of the family freely partaking of condiments, drinks and unsuitable foods, and be told they are the only ones who must refrain. A little personal self-sacrifice helps immensely, and if your child must refrain so might you.
All foods must be pure. Avoid tinned goods, and cheap jams, which contain mangels and glucose. Judged by the nutriment they contain—most cheap foods are very expensive.
Lightly boil, poach, or scramble eggs; steam fish and vegetables; cook rice and sago in the oven for three hours. See that milk puddings are chewed, for usually they are bolted more quickly than anything else. The stomach is expected to deal with unchewed rice pudding, because it is "nourishing". So are walnuts, but you do not swallow them whole.
Fruit must be fresh, ripe and raw, with skin and core removed. Brown bread, crisply toasted and buttered when cold, is best. Porridge is admirable, but many children dislike it. Try to induce a taste by giving plenty of milk, and sugar or syrup with it.
The starch-digesting ferments in the saliva and pancreas are not active until the age of 18 months, before [pg 102] which infants must not be given starchy foods like potatoes, cereals, puddings and bread.
All greenstuffs must be thoroughly washed, or worms may pass into the system. Foul breath, picking the nose, restlessness, fever and startings are often attributed to worms, when the real "worms" are mince pies, raisins, sour apples, and even beer.
Never force fat on children in a form they do not like, for there are plenty of palatable fats, as butter, dripping, lard and milk. Cream is as cheap, as good, and far nicer than cod-liver oil.
Decide on your children's diet, but do not discuss it with or before them. If a child does dislike a dish, never force it on him, but try to induce a liking by serving it in a more appetizing way. Never mix medicines with food.
Worms. Various symptoms are due to intestinal worms, and a sharp lookout should be kept for the appearance of any in the stools, and suitable treatment given when necessary.
Treatment for thread and round worms:
R. Santonini gr. ij. Hydrarg. chloridi mitis gr. ij. Pulv. aromatici gr. iv. Mix and divide into four. Take one at bedtime every other night,
followed by castor oil in the morning.Tapeworms. These are rarer, being much more frequently talked or read about than seen. A doctor should be consulted.
Moral Training. The road to hell is broad and easy; so is that to heaven, for if bad habits are easily acquired, so are good ones.
Example is the best moral precept, and if the conduct [pg 103] of parents is good, little moral exhortation is needed. "What is the moral ideal set before children in most families? Not to be noisy, not to put the fingers in the nose or mouth, not to help themselves with their hands at table, not to walk in puddles when it rains, etc. To be 'good'!" To hedge in the child's little world, the most wonderful it will ever know, by hidebound rules enforced by severe punishments, is to repress a child, not to train it. While the commonest error is to spoil a child, it is just as harmful to crush it. Be firm, be kindly, and, above all, be fair.
Issue no command hastily, but only if necessary, and shun prohibitions based on petulance or pique. Give the child what it wants if easily obtainable and not harmful.
If the desire is harmful, explain why, but if a child asks for a toy, do not pettishly reply: "It's nearly bedtime!" when it is not, or even if it is.
Discipline is essential, but discipline does not consist in inconsistent nagging; harshly insisting on unquestioning obedience to some unreasonable command one moment, and weakly giving way in order to avoid a scene on some matter vitally affecting the child's welfare the next.
There must be no coddling, and no inducement to self-pity. Such children must be taught that they are capable of real success and real failure, and that upon personal obedience to the laws of health of body and of mind, this success or failure largely depends.
A child should be early accustomed to have confidence in himself. For this purpose all about him must encourage him and receive with kindliness whatever he does or says out of goodwill, only giving him gently to understand, if necessary, that he might have done better and been more successful if he had followed this or that other course. Nothing is more apt to deprive a child of confidence in himself than to tell him brutally [pg 104] that he does not understand, does not know how, cannot do this or that, or to laugh at his attempts. His educators must persuade him that he can understand, and that he can do this thing or that, and must be pleased with his slightest effort.
It seems a trifle to let a child have the run of cake plate or sweet-tray, or to stay up "just another five minutes, Mummy!" to avoid a howl, but these are the trifles that sow acts to reap habits, habits to reap character, and character to fulfil destiny. It is selfish of parents to avoid trouble by not teaching their children habits of obedience, self-restraint, order and unselfishness. Between five and ten is the age of greatest imitation, when habits are most readily contracted.
Come to no decision until hearing the child's wishes or statements, and thinking the matter out; having come to it, be inexorable despite the wiles, whines and wails of a subtle child. Reduce both promises and threats to a minimum, but rigidly fulfil them, for a threat which can be ignored, and a promise unfulfilled, are awful errors in training a child.
Persuade, rather than prohibit or prevent, a child from doing harmful actions. If it wants to touch a hot iron, say clearly it is hot, and will burn, but do not move it. Then, if the child persists, it will touch the iron tentatively, and the small discomfort will teach it that obedience would have been better. Let it learn as far as possible by the hard, but wholesome, road of experience.
Makeshift answers must never be given to a child. Awkward questions require truthful answers, even though these only suggest more "Whys?"
Sentimentality must be nipped promptly in the bud, and an imaginative and humorous view of things encouraged. The child must be taught to keep the passions under control, and to face pain (that great [pg 105] educator which neurotic natures feel with exaggerated keenness) with fortitude.
Fear must be excluded from a child's experience. "Bogies!" "Ghosts!" "Robbers!" and "Black-men!" if unintroduced, will not naturally be feared. The mental harm a highly strung child does by rearing most fearsome imaginings on small foundations is incalculable, and has led more than one to an asylum.
Try to train the child to go to sleep in the dark, but if it is frightened give it a nightlight. As Guthrie says, the comfort derived from the assurance that Unseen Powers are watching over it, is small compared to that given by a nightlight. He mentions a child who, when told she need not fear the dark because God would be with her, said: "I wish you'd take God away and leave the candle."
If the child wakes terrified, it is stupid and wicked to call upstairs: "Go to sleep!" A child cannot go to sleep in that state, and a wise mother will go up and softly soothe the frightened eyes to sleep.
Neuropathic children often have night terrors within an hour or two of going to bed. Piercing screams cause a hasty rush upstairs, where the child is found sitting up in bed, crouching in a corner, or trying to get out of door or window. His face is distorted with fear and he stares wildly at the part of the room in which he sees the terrifying apparition. He clings to his mother but does not know her. After some time he recovers, but is in a pitiful state and has to have his hand held while he dozes fitfully off. He often wets the bed or passes a large amount of colourless urine. Medical treatment is imperative.
Corporal punishment is unsuitable for neuropathic children, for the mere suggestion of its application usually causes such excessive dread, mental upset and terror as make it really dangerous. Such children are often said to be "naughty" when in reality they are [pg 106] unable to exercise self-control, owing to defective inhibitory power. Try patiently to inculcate obedience from the desire to do right, and make chastisement efficacious from its very exceptional character.
"The young child is too unconscious to have a deliberately perverse intention; to ascribe to him the fixed determination to do evil, is to judge him unjustly and often to develop in him an evil instinct. It is better in such a case to tell him he has made a mistake, that he did not foresee the consequences to which his action might lead, etc." Many parents fall into a habit of shaking, ear-boxing, and such-like harmful minor punishments for equally minor offences, which should be overlooked.
In all little troubles, keep quite calm. The child's nerve and association centres have not yet got "hooked up", and you cannot expect it to act reasonably instead of impulsively. This excuse does not apply to you. One excitable person is more than enough, for if both get angry, sensible measures will certainly not result.
The necessity for calmness cannot too strongly be urged. The treatment for a fit of temper, is to give the unfortunate child a warm bath, and put it to bed, with a few toys, when it will soon fall asleep, and awake refreshed and calm.
Proceed gently but with absolute firmness, start early, and remember that example is better than precept.
Religion. Offering advice on this subject is skating on very thin ice, and we do so but to give grave warning against neuropathic youth being allowed to contract religious "mania", "ecstasy", or "exaltation".
Neuropaths are given naturally to "see visions and dream dreams", and if this tendency be exaggerated an unbalanced moral type results. Jones says:
"The epileptic is apt to be greatly influenced by the mystical or awe-inspiring, and is disposed [pg 107] to morbid piety. He has an outer religiousness without corresponding strictness of morals; indeed the sentiment of religious exaltation may be in great contrast to his habitual conduct, which is a mixture of irritability, vice and perverted instincts."Lay stress on the simple moral teaching of the New Testament, and avoid cranky creeds, cross references, or Higher Criticism. Teach them to practise the moral precepts, not to quote them by the page.
Without this practical bent, a "Revival" meeting is apt to result in a transient but harmful "conversion"; a form of religious sentiment which finds outlet, not so much in works as in morbid excitement. In these people, as in the insane, there is often a weird mixing-up of religious and sexual emotion.
Teach these children that the greatest good is not to sob over their fancied sins at "salvation" meetings, but to love the just and good, to hate the unjust and evil, and to do unto others as they would others should do unto them.
It is better for them to join one of the great churches, than become members of those small sects which maintain peculiar tenets.
A word of special warning must be given against Spiritualism. There may or may not be a foundation for this belief, but it is highly abnormal, and has led thousands into asylums.
The medium and the majority of her audience are highly neurotic, and a more unwholesome environment for an actual or potential neuropath could not be imagined.
The educated neuropath often peruses certain agnostic works, the result usually being deplorable, for this class are dependent on some stable base outside themselves, such as is found in a calm religion manifested [pg 108] in a steadfast attempt to overcome the weakness of the flesh, by ordering life in accordance with the teachings of the New Testament.
So long as abnormalities of character do not become too pronounced, friends must be content.
Such children must be trained to express themselves in a practical manner, not in weaving gorgeous phantasies in which they march to imaginary victory. Day dreams form one of those unlatched doors of the madhouse that swing open at a touch, the phantasy of to-day being written "emotional dementia" on a lunacy certificate to-morrow.
Finally, remember that above them hangs the curse:
"Unstable as water, thou shall not excel."
"Go thou softly with them, all their days!" and whether your tears fall on the ashes of a loved and loving, but weak and wilful one, or whether their tears bedew the grave of the only friend they ever knew, you will not have lacked a rich reward.
