Recently I made some investigations into the working of the public-school system of Philadelphia, particularly with reference to the question of overwork and sanitation.116 I had special opportunities during the investigations to study the influences of different methods of education, owing to the fact that the public-school system of Philadelphia is just now in a transition period. This system is in a state of hopeful confusion—hopeful, because I believe that out of its present condition will come eventually a great boon to Philadelphia. At one end of the system, in the primary and the secondary schools, a graded method of instruction has been introduced. The grammar and the high schools are working on an ungraded or differently graded method. I found still prevailing, particularly in certain of the grammar schools for girls, although not to the same extent as a few years since, methods of cramming and stuffing calculated above all to produce hysteria and allied disorders in those predisposed to them.
116 The results of these investigations were given in a lecture which was delivered in the Girls' Normal School of Philadelphia before the Teachers' Institute of Philadelphia, Dec. 11, 1885.
Education should be so arranged as to develop the brain by a natural process—not from within outward; not from the centre to the periphery; not from above downward; but as the nervous system itself develops in its evolution from a lower to a higher order of animals, from the simple to the more complex and more elaborate. Any system of education is wrong, and is calculated to weaken and worry an impressionable nervous system, which attempts to overturn or change this order of the progress of a true development of the brain. To develop the nervous system as it should be developed—slowly, naturally, and evenly—it must also be fed, rested, and properly exercised.
In those primary schools in which the graded method was best carried out this process of helping natural development was pursued, and the result was seen in contented faces, healthy bodies, and cheerful workers. In future the result will be found in less chorea, hysteria, and insanity.
To prevent the development of hysteria, parents and physicians should direct every effort. The family physician who discovers a child to be neurotic, and who from his knowledge of parents, ancestors, and collateral relatives knows that a predisposition to hysteria or some other neurosis is likely to be present, should exercise all the moral influence which he possesses to have a healthy, robust training provided. It is not within the scope of an article of this kind to describe in great detail in what such education should consist. Reynolds is correct when he says that “self-control should be developed, the bodily health should be most carefully regarded, and some motive or purpose should be supplied which may give force, persistence, unity, and success to the endeavors of the patient.” In children who have a tendency to the development of hysteria the inclinations should not always or altogether be regarded in choosing a method or pursuing a plan of education. It is not always to what such a child takes that its mind should be constantly directed; but, on the contrary, it is often well to educate it away from its inclination. “The worst thing that can be done is that which makes the patient know and feel that she is thought to be peculiar. Sometimes such treatment is gratifying to her, and she likes it—it is easy and it seems kind to give it—but it is radically wrong.”
In providing for the bodily health of hysterical children it should be seen that exercise should be taken regularly and in the open air, but over-fatigue should be avoided; that ample and pleasant recreation should be provided; that study should be systematic and disciplinary, but at the same time varied and interesting, and subservient to some useful purpose; that the various functions of secretion, excretion, menstruation should be regulated.
The importance of sufficient sleep to children who are predisposed to hysteria or any other form of nervous or mental disorder can scarcely be over-estimated. The following, according to J. Crichton Browne,117 is the average duration of sleep required at different ages: 4 years of age, 12 hours; 7 years of age, 11 hours; 9 years of age, 10½ hours; 14 years of age, 10 hours; 17 years of age, 9½ hours; 21 years of age, 9 hours; 28 years of age, 8 hours. To carefully provide that children shall obtain this amount of sleep will do much to strengthen the nervous system and subdue or eradicate hysterical tendencies. Gymnastics, horseback riding, walking, swimming, and similar exercises all have their advantages in preventing hysterical tendencies.
117 Education and the Nervous System, reprinted from The Book of Health by permission of Messrs. Cassell & Co., Limited.
Herz118 has some instructive and useful recommendations with reference to the treatment of hysteria in children. It is first and most important to rehabilitate the weakened organism, and especially the central nervous system, by various dietetic, hygienic, and medicinal measures. It is important next to tranquillize physical and mental excitement. This can sometimes be done by disregard of the affection, by neglect, or by removal or threatened removal of the child from its surroundings. Such treatment should of course be employed with great discretion. Anæmia and chlorosis, often present in the youthful victims of hysteria, should be thoroughly treated. Care should be taken to learn whether children of either sex practise masturbation, which, Jacobi and others insist, frequently plays an important part in the production of hysteria. Proper measures should be taken to prevent this practice. The genital organs should receive examination and treatment if this is deemed at all necessary. On the other hand, care should be taken not to direct the attention of children unnecessarily to those organs when they are entirely innocent of such habits. Painting the vagina twice daily with a 10 per cent. solution of hydrochlorate cocaine has been found useful in subduing the hyper-irritation of the sexual organs in girls accustomed to practise masturbation. Herz, with Henoch, prefers the hydrate of chloral to all other medicines, although he regards morphine as almost equally valuable, in the treatment of hysteria in children. Personally, I prefer the bromides to either morphia or chloral. Small doses of iron and arsenic continued systematically for a long period will be found useful. Politzer of Vienna regards the hydrobromate and bihydrobromate of iron as two valuable preparations in the hysteria of children, and exhibits them in doses of four to seven grains three to four times daily.
118 Wien. Med. Wochen., No. 46, Nov. 14, 1885.