ically the situation, with all the bribes to do so made larger by
feebleness, and at last gains that extreme belief in its own inability
to rise or move about which absolute convictions of this nature impose
on child or man.

There is a further and worse stage possible. The child's claims
increase. Its complaints gather force, and alarm those about it.
Gratified in all its whims, it develops perverted tastes, or refuses all
food but what it fancies. At last it becomes violent if opposed, and
rules at will a scared circle of over-affectionate relatives. When all
else fails, it exaggerates or invents symptoms, and so goes on, until
some resolute physician sees the truth and opens the eyes of an amazed
family.

Certain physicians explain these cases as due to hysteria, and in a
small number of instances there are signs which justify such an
explanation. But in the larger proportion the mode of origin is complex,
and depends on the coincidence of a variety of evils, none of which are
of hysterical character. I am not here concerned so much with the exact
nature of these troubles as I am with the avoidable errors in the
management of sick childhood. If I can make the mother more thoughtfully
alert, less disposed to terror and exaggeration, less liable to be led
by her emotions, I shall have fulfilled my purpose without such
discussion as is out of place in essays like these.

To make clear, however, the possibility of the disasters I have briefly
described, an illustration may answer better than any length of
generalized statements. A little fellow of nine once came under my care,
and was said to have inflammation of the coverings of the brain. There
was a long story, which I may sum up in a few sentences. An only child;
feeble in youth; indulgence to almost any degree; at the age of eight, a
fall, not at all grave, but followed by some days of headache; long rest
in bed, by order of a physician; much pity; many questions;
half-whispered, anxious discussions at the bedside; yet more excessive
indulgence, because every denial seemed to increase or cause headache.
At last the slightest annoyance became cause for tears, and finally for
blame, all of which a gentle, fearful mother bore as if it were part of
the natural trials of disease. It took but a few months of complete
non-restraint to make of a shrewd, bright, half-educated, spoiled boy a
little brute, as to whose sanity there seemed to be some doubt. He was
easily made