TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1929, Page 9

TALKS ON HEALTH

THE DULL CHILD (By a Family Doctor Children differ in the degree of intelligence. We all know sharp, precocious children and dull children. If a child is dull’ aiid is always at the bottom of the class, an attempt must \be made to discover the cause. It is ta 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 to find out that something was wrong. If a little boy is deaf and can only hear a part of what the teacher says, he cannot be expected to be on the same level as the other children. He may bo very intelligent, but suffers from adenoids, which block up the hearing apparatus. If a careful examination has been made and it becomes clear that no remediable defect can bo adduced to explain the dullness the problem is then to know what to do for the best.

It is better to send him to a special school where the teacher can give individual attention. When the boy leaves school, he should be sent to some institution where he can be taken care of and given suitable work. These children who aro deficient in common sense and ar© yet not bad enough to bo classed as insane are a source of anxiety. If left to mako their own way in the world,; they always get into trouble. How often you read of a case in the courts ■ where a prisoner is found guilty, but • is detained for the condition of his j 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 enable 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 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 nd kept clean, and given such employment as they are capable of doing. It . much cheaper in the end to keep chose cases under control than to let •hem run wild and become thieves and v agabonds. Wo do not want these mentally deferent people to breed their like. There ro quite enough human problems to .•e.'.i w..th without having an army of

‘ Hots and semi-insane men and women ~mpli eating matters. The proper way .> acai with insanity is to cut it off : the supply. It is misery to the .files. to be born of mentally defective .rontr,; it is misery to the babies •ten they are grown up to hr.vc t /ugglo In the streets for their living. .. is misery for the police ami magis- .. rates and prison doctors to have to deal with them; and it is misery for the taxpayer to have to provide for < hundred thousand defective children when he has hard work to find bread and butter and milk for his own little lot. RELIGIOUS MANIA The best antidote for religious mania is free social intercourse with whole-some-minded young people. The girl who is beginning to brood over relig:ais books and dismally to complain mat she is a lost soul, must be packed off to a jolly picnic with ether young people of both sexes. A sound religion mould 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. It may be necessary to take.away all her religious books for the time being. Let her go for walks in the fields and get thoroughly tired, so that she sleeps well at night and does not lay awake brooding over the condition of her soul. It 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 you must act boldly and with a firm hand.

DIPHTHERIA AND THE CAT If you have had a 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 has been taken away to the fever hospital. When pussy has been thoroughly infected with the germs of diphtheria, she walks about the 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. It 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 all eats in the King’s Dominions were to be destroyed; : poor pussies! But still, we can, all exercise due caution when we know that the cat was the close companion of a diphtheria patient. You will not find qny cats in the fever hospitals; they would be a grave source of danger.