quanimity the pain and discomfort to which
everyone sooner or later cannot help but be exposed. What I
have said about clothing, cold baths, walking in all
weather and at all temperatures, play and exercise in the
open air, has a bearing on this point, for a child who has
formed good habits in these various directions will have
learned many lessons in the steeling of his mind to bear
pain and to ignore small discomforts."--(Barker:
"Principles of Mental Hygiene Applied to the Management of
Children Predisposed to Nervousness.")

CONVALESCENT PATIENTS

After serious or prolonged illness the vitality is generally low and all
bodily processes are likely to be depressed. During convalescence,
therefore, the digestion is feeble, the muscles are weak so that fatigue
follows slight exertion, and the sluggish condition of the circulation
renders the patient especially sensitive to cold. Since the nervous
system also becomes depressed and irritable, a convalescent patient is
easily excited, easily discouraged, and quickly fatigued by mental
effort. He finds the simplest decisions hard to make, and his emotions
difficult to control; indeed, many a patient who has borne acute pain
with unflinching courage becomes peevish at this stage, weeps easily,
and expects more expression of sympathy than is good for him. Some
persons naturally make quick recoveries, while others recuperate
slowly. A long and tedious convalescence, it should be remembered, is
the patient's misfortune rather than his fault.

In restoring a convalescent patient to normal living it is imperative to
proceed slowly. Food should be increased gradually both in variety and
in amount; but the patient's appetite is not always a safe guide, and it
may need to be encouraged or to be restrained. Both mental and physical
exertion should begin only under careful supervision, and should
increase by slow degrees. The patient should sleep as much as possible,
should take long intervals of rest, and should continue no occupation to
the point of fatigue. A patient who has been ill in a hospital or who
has had at home the exclusive services of a nurse or an attendant, often
finds the period following his return or following the nurse's departure
an exceedingly difficult transition. The family should not expect or
allow him to resume too many duties at a time when the mere acts of
bathing and dressing may demand all the st