TALKS ON HEALTH

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 72, 25 March 1931, Page 9

TALKS ON HEALTH

By A FAMILY DOCTOR

BAD TEMPER AND BAD DIGESTION. Which came first, the bird or the egg? I cannot tell. But which came first, bad temper or bad digestion? I should like you to introduce that subject at the next meeting of your debating. society. I imagine a great outpouring of wisdom from the older members of the society, and I should like to have their views.

In our dealings with children, it becomes a matter that may well keep us awake at night. Are we to punish our bad-tempered children, or are we to take them to the dentist? Are we to take them to the parson, or to the doctor. There is room for confusion of thought here. What a funny thing it would be, if the parson gave the child a rhubarb powder, and the doctor gave him a ten minutes’ lecture on self-control and said no medicine was needed! No doubt in the bad old days many mistakes were made; but nowadays it is impossible to go wrong. This question of physical versus mental disease has been thoroughly threshed out. No sooner are young people engaged than they they refain irom going to the pictures in order to study tlie psychology of the growing mind. On the arrival of their firstborn the young father and mother are ready, equipped by a long training for the care of the little newcomer’s body and soul. The Baby’s Bad Temper. Speaking as a doctor of some experience I may say we all arrive in this world in a bad temper. A howl of disgust is the first act of a new-born babe. No one could express on his face a more determined contempt for this world than a baby. He screws up his nose and his mouth; he clenches his little fists in a vain attempt to punch the world on the nose; he even lashes out blindly with his toes in the hope of catching someone on the shins. It is pleasant to record that the young man sobers down in a few hours. Finding that nothing is exgected of him but to sleep and eat, e relents and becomes more placid. But never forget, ye parents and nurses, that the bad temper is lurking somewhere and will require watching. Do you ever- stop to think what heredity means? Dike father, like son. May I implore you to cultivate your own self-control before you tackle your little son? There are several reasons tor cultivating a good temper, but the most important is to set a good example to your children. It is a dreadful thing when the neighbours say, “It would be the best plan to take away those children from their bad-tempered father.” Why cannot you all be like me, always smiling? (My Wife generally corrects these articles for me, but she is not going to see this one). I reckon it costs £3OO a year to have a bad temper. A man with a bad temper ought to be sent to the isolation hospital until he is better; he infects others. Causes of Bad Temper. But why are we bad-tempered? Well, consider this for a moment. We human beings have been on the earth

for millions of years—no one knows hovr long; every new discovery seems to push the date back. There has never been a time when all the humans were killed off and a fresh start made. We have gone on, generation to generation, from the dawn of creation. Little doubt can be entertained that our distant ancestors were savage, uncouth, like animals. Now cast your mental gaze ahead for as many million years as vou have just cast it back. Have you anv doubt that the earth will be a paradise ? I am a great believer in the Millenium. It is a slow job, but we shall in the end work out our salvation. One day we shall have a world where there are no doctors; because no doctors are needed in a disease-free planet. These noble speculations about our future are good for us; they enlarge our mental horizon. We ought to think more about these things. Victims of Ancestry.

Well. now. I hope you have not hurt yourselves by thinking about billions of years behind and before, because I want you to look out of the window and concentrate your thoughts on the present. In the street, over the wav, is old Mrs Bloggins, screaming with fury as she tears at the hair of her lady friend, who delivers savage scratches on Mrs Bloggins’s face, in the confident hope that her nails will be long enough to blind her opponent and end the struggle. Soon she will be in the police station, where a surgeon will tenderly wipe the blood from her face and soothe her ruffled nerves. But you must not be too hard on our heroine. To some extent she is the victim of her ancestry. At a time when there were no dwellings in England and the natives cowered in caves, they carried on in exactlv the same way. They tore each other in animal combats. Their race was generated year after year, and their blood is flowing in the veins of Mrs Bloggins. Yes, and in our veins, too, and the whole of our lives is a struggle to overcome the savage cave-dweller that lurks within us, and to replace his savagery by the sweet reasonableness of the new race that is to inherit the earth. Mrs Bloggins’s great-great-grand-children will be men whose souls are purged of cave-dwelling propensities, and they will be quite incapable of biting each other’s ears off in the street. How Long Will It Be? The question for us is: “llow long will it be?” I think it depends on ourselves. Hard work will do it; study; of child life will help; the early teaching of even infants that bad temper is wrong will assist. Remember that a baby of four weeks knows the meaning of the word “ No.” Bad temper makes us ill. We have had epidemics of strikes, epidemics of influenza, now an epidemic of bad temper. I cannot stand it much longer. Nervous diseases are on the increase, and chiefly because the cave man holds sway in our hearts. I have appointed a powerful committee to deal with this subject. The committee consists of one man and that man is myself. I propose, by my own unaided efforts, to abolish bad temper and all its attendant ills, simply by writing in this paper.