TALKS ON HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 118, 21 May 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY i

A FAMILY DOCTOR.

NERVE TRAINING. This is to explain the wonderful principle of nerve training. We can train everything else—why not nerves? Th * ear can be trained to detect a wrong note: a piano-tuner can pick out. . one note that is slightly sharp or flat in the whole range of the piano. 1 An artist; can train his eye to draw to the fraction of an inch. The athlete | can train his heart to bear the strain . of a cross-country run or a long boat race. The blacksmith can train his arm to wield heavy hammers Ml day. And yet you want to make out that 1 ■ cannot train your nerves for you! A Question of Control. Shall I. let you into a secret? Doc- . tors have nerves when they first start, j When, as a young man. the budding < doctor has to give a patient an anaesthetic, take the life of a fellow creature in his hands and keep him in a i state of unconsciousness .for an hour— 1 well, he feels some strain on bis nerves, , and he is very glad when the ojxjration is over. Later on be wins confidence. He has trained his nerves. Some men . are. luckily for themselves, uom without any trace of nervousness in their ■ constitution; at the age of about two months they put their nurses in their place, and keep them thece. Others there are—and I. think thev deserve < the most credit—who ire naturally , nervous, but have gained firm control of themselves. What man has done, man may do. The Human Boy. In the first years of life the child has very little to do with the development, of his own character. He is under the complete guidance and control of hiparents and school-teachers. And a ; grave responsibility it is for those par- ; cuts. .1. am afraid the human boy is j not always as carefully studied as hr ought to be. He is a strange animal, and has to be observed and taught by definite rules. At the same time, each < individual has to be treated according 1 10 his own peculiar disposition, so that general rules may be varied aud adapted to suit the case. My sou Bill is not the same as your son William, and ho, again is different from Airs. Brown’s little Willie. Put the stick across Bill's shoulders and you will lo him good; whack William and you will ' ruin his nerves for all time. If you want to make a thoroughbred mend his pace, touch him very lightly with the . on" of a soft whip. If you want to make an old cow move on you can wallop her with a cudgel. The First Rule. We can easily guess at our first rule for nerve-training then—it is to choose your parents carefully. If your father has no more idea how to bring up children than the man in the moon, try to select a mother with strong commonsense and discrimination to counteract poor father’s imbecility. If mother has no brain, get father to take a hand in your up-bringing. After you have stared in pained wonderment at mother in a silly fit of hysterics, go for a walk with father in the open country j ns.a healthy corrective. Punishment For the Parents. I suppose the most troublesome of all parental problems is how to punish children when they deserve correcting. I like to think that parents are—painfully and slowly, but nevertheless surely learning their job. But 1 am afraid there are still some who shut, their children in dark cupboards, or leave them alone in the house, or torment them in senseless ways. It is a very sad experience for those same parents to see their children developing into nervous men and women as they grow older. Parents who treat their families to exhibitions of loss of nervout control, shoutings and bawlings. j angry cioutings on the head, outbursts j over trifles, are, under my system to 1 b<*—well, shall I say locked in a dark i cupboard? You can think of your own plan to dea] with them, only promise me that it. will be something drastic. Every child should be taught, to be under all circumstances. The teaching will stand him in good stead some Training For Emergencies. Education in the broadest sense is a good safeguard against nerves. Travel, experience of men of all sorts and conditions, reading, conversing with people, cleverer than yourself (if any exist), the. observing of others acting under difficult circumstances with credit to themselves, military discipline, and, in a word, a knowledge of the world—all these things enable you to cope with emergencies. When the lamp in the kitchen falls over and sets light to tho curtains, poor old cook can think of nothing better to do than to lie on the floor and scream and kick. •Such conduct is of no particular use in meeting the emergency. But mark the behaviour of t’nc officer of tho fire brigade. He does not lie on the'floor and scream nor does he kick, brave man! He takes a couple of pails of water and pours them over tlie flames. Splendid fellow! Poor old cook! Don’t blame her. She was never taught self-control when she was a child. But she might have been. The 1 difference between the fireman and the 1 dear old cook was not so much in their actions at the moment of trial as in the months ami years of training and mental development beforehand. “Firemen. Not Cook.” I am trying la.'.fully to indicate that you, dear reader, should take the fireman as your model rather than the cook, whom we love but cannot admire. You can do it, but not without a definite attempt, to educate yourself. Write on a piece of paper, “Fireman, not 1 cook,” and pin it. up above your wash- ; hand stand so that every morning you will have it impressed on you that you ( must, control your nerves and retain a cool head in all (■ircumstances. If you I write up. Nervous I am, and nervous I . shall remain, you may as well retire . from the struggle.