Right Terrors in Children.

Otago Witness, Issue 2504, 19 March 1902, Page 64

Right Terrors in Children.

Many adults know from their own expeiience how distressing actual terror i«. A perilous exposure has peihaps called it out so strongly that the; very remembrance of the adventure is exceedingly painful. Some men have been completely prostrated by the feeling. Not a few sufferers from cerebral disease have been tormented with terrors only less horrible than those experienced by the victim of delirium tremens. It is well known that a night of terror lias not unfioquently blanched a, stalwart suiferer's hair to absolute whiteness. Many a sudden death has been due to sudden flight.

Now niizht teiror , a not uncommon among children, arel their suffering's fiom it are quite as ieal, and perhaps quite as great, as those of the grown nieii and women to whom we have referied. and the practice of dealing hai-shly with them because of the unreasonableness of the fear, and sometimes even of punishing them with a view to bieaking up the habit, oi with the thought of expelling a fancied trouble by a real one, cannot be too strongly condemned. livery one shrnild remembec- tint it is of the very natui-i of teiror. whether the cause be real of fancied, to unnerve its victim.

Say» the Medical and Surgical Reporter: '•Whoever has experienced tliev..- teirois in his own person, cv studied them in his own childien. must feel deeply that they are a \ery serious affliction, and call for tlr? gieiitest amount ol w ir-e and kindly sympathy, and the most di-cicct management In liio-t OS.-, They air associated with tome chioinc or t< nipoi.u v ailment. It.digestion, a caUnhul condition of the air pas-ago. which ml lfeies with respiiation, swelling of the tonsils, o i ( ,f the substance of the walls of the air passages, and congestion ofthe membi mes of the brain, constipation, or ;.n over-lilled bladder are among the causes which givv iifce to night terrois-. In treating tiiein. of course, it is necessary, first of all, to ascertain, if possible, the presence of such exciting causes-, and to remove them." A blight light m the room is often exceedingly lielpful, as thus the real, through the medium of M^ht. ciovvds out the linagin.ii r. Jlovv often even <-t) ciii<j-mirdt<l men find a simil n- ielief horn lin.igin.u y fe.'ii.s! Sometime^ un assuring word fiom onpwliom ih° child fully tiu-ts, W it'i her presence for a wlnle in the io«,m, m.iy be =ufncient to allay his feaus and soothe him to quiet slumber. Sonic-tinn « ins mind may be iclieved by diveitini,' n. as the Re-porter suggests-, by producing his tovf-, or gam-?, or pictme books, O i by paying on a musical instiument.