TALKS ON HEALTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 24 July 1929, Page 2

TALKS ON HEALTH

(BY- A FAMILY DOCTOR; THE DULL CHILD Children differ in the, degree of in tulJigeneo. Wo all know sharp, precocious children and dull children. If a child is dull and is always at the bottom of the class, an attempt must be made to discover the cause. Ii is a wicked thing to punish a child for some defect which he cannot help; it would be more logical to punish the. parents, school teacher, or doctor who had failed 1,0 hnd out that something was wrong. ll' a little boy is deal' and can only hear a part, of what the teacher says, he cannot be expected to he on th ( . same level as the other children, lie may be very intelligent, but suffer from adenoids which block iij) the hearing appa rains, If a careful examination lias been made ami it becomes clear Ihjit let remediable defect can be adduced to explain the dullness the. problem is then to know what lo do for the best. Sl'li.lKCTS FOR SPECIAL CARE It is heller to send him to a special school where, the teacher can give individual attention. When the boy leaves .school, lie should be sent, to some institution where lie can be taken care of and given suitable work. These children who are deficient in co-minon sense ami are yel not bad enough to be classed as insane are a source of great anxiety. If left to make their own way in the world, tiiey always get into trouble. How often you read of a case in the courts where the prisoner is found guilty, but is detained foe the condition of his mind to be inquired into before he is punished. BENEFIT OF CONTROL It is unfair to leave these young people to fight the battle of life when they are not provided 'with the mental equipment that will ena-ble them to struggle against difficulty and temptation. It .is worse with the female sex than with the male. This is a land of liberty, but no one wants to give' a mentally deficient girl liberty to go downhill to misery and disease. The wise and ordered discipline of an institution will give the young people protection from themselves and their perverted ideas, they will be well fed and kept clean, and given such employment as they are capable of doing. It is much cheaper in the end to keep these, cases under control than to let them run wild and become thieves and vagabonds. A SERIOUS PROBLEM We do not want these mentally deficient people to breed their like. There are quite enough human problems to deal with without, having an army of idiots and semi-insane men and women complicating matters. The proper way to deal with insanity is to cut it off nt the supply. It is misery to the babies to be born of mentally defective parents; it is misery to the babies when they are grown up to have to struggle in the. streets for their living; it is misery for the police and magistrates and prison doctors'to have to deal with them ; and it is misery for the taxpayer to have to provide, for a hundred thousand defective children when he has hard work- to find bread and butler and milk for his own little lot. A WORD TO WOMEN" I do hope the women, now that they all have, the vote, will tackle this question. It ought not to be beyond the wit of man to devise a scheme to deal with mentally deficient girls and boys. I will not hi,ve them running about the streets, and I will not have them hecoming fathers and mothers and reproducing their horrid kind. Mercy they shall have, love they shall have, butnot liberty—liberty to make our country less pleasant to live in. RELIGIOUS MANIA . The best antidote for religious mania is free social intercourse with wholesomeminded young people.. The girl who is beginning to brood over religious books and dismally to complain that she is a soul, must be packed off to a jolly picnic with other young peopie of both sexes. A sound religion should form the basis of everyone's mind, but it is a bad sign when religion makes a young girl melancholy. Religion should be a thing of hope and courage, not of gloom and despair. The duty rests with the parents to 'guide their daughter's mind.

THE PARENTS' PART It may be necessary to take away all her religious Tiooks for the. time being. Let her go for walks in the fields and get thoroughly tired, so that she sleeps well at night and (locs not lav awake brooding over the. condition of her soul, ft is all a question of degree. Everyone has something wrong with his soul,' except, of course, doctors; and that man is a poor creature who never feels within him a desire to be a better man. But I cannot allow depression and religion to go hand in' hand. Good parents, hearken to the words of wisdom ; you are to deal with the early stages' of melancholia, at once without waiting for further developments, and von must act boldly and with a firm hand. DIPHTHERIA AND THE CAT If you have had " case of diphtheria in the house, the sanitary authorities will disinfect the rooms and clothing, but they will not disinfect the. cat. The cat, being a general favourite, was stroked and kissed and hugged by the little girl who lias been taken away to the fever hospital. When pussy ' has been thoroughly infected with the germs of diphtherial she walks about it'Jie house, has a good sniff at the milk, the fish, or any other food she can get a smell at before she is smacked, and ends up in the arms of the other little girl in the house. If is not always easy to discover how the infection was conveyed to any given case, but cats are one of the possible channels through which dangerous germs are carried from person to person. It would never do to issue an order that till cats in the King's Dominions were to be destroyed ; poor pussies! But still, we can ail exercise due caution when we know that the cat was the close companion of a diphtheria patient. You will not find any cats in the fever hospitals; they would be a grave source of danger.