Disease in children : a manual for students and practitioners / by James Carmichael.

  • Carmichael, James.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Disease in children : a manual for students and practitioners / by James Carmichael. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/636 (page 10)
    Dyspepsia, with which is often associated constipation, is a common result of prolonged hours in close class-rooms, little open air exercise, and want of regularity in meal hours. Constipation is particularly common in girls, and is closely associated with want of regular habit. The pupil hurries over breakfast, or perhaps takes very little if any, and rushes off to school without attending to nature's appeal. The want of a proper meal in the middle of the day is a serious one. Although this defect is now remedied to some extent in our large day schools, it is not regulated in such a way as to be of real benefit to the child. Sufficient time is not given for the meal, nor a proper interval allowed, with some open air exercise, before resuming study. It is worse than useless to give a child half-an-hour to take a meal after four hours' work in a close class-room, and immediately thereafter require it to resume work. Two hours' interval in the middle of the day is absolutely necessary to insure time to take a meal and allow of suitable relaxation after it. The feeding of children during school hours, as at present carried out in our day schools, is a direct cause of dyspepsia and other ailments. Ancemia is a condition we are often called upon to deal with in school children, and although it may not always be referable to school life, in many cases no other cause can be made out for the depravity. Girls suffer in far larger pro- portion than boys, and in those approaching puberty delayed menstruation generally results. Disordered Menses.—The causes leading up to menstraal disorders after puberty are so often associated with conditions of life obtaining during previous years, as to justify a passing reference in the present chapter. The observation of all those who have given attention to the subject, affords proof that girls suffer in far larger proportion than boys from school life. Having given this subject a good deal of careful thought during recent years, I conclude that in girls the nervous system is less able to bear the strain of continuous study than in boys ; that the present system .of educating girls very much