The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1922-03-29

child. | can well imagine how teach
ers have suffered in similar fashion.
and while l do not underestimate
the benefit to be derived from edu-
cation, and while I recognize that
lack of proper discipline often i'm
pedes educational effort, yet it is
even a graver fault when the same
lack has the effect of absolutely
h~andicapping the best efforts of the
physician.
No child is so we'll guarded that
illness does not occasionally attack
t; the undisciplined child, as a mat
ter of fact, is more liable to con-
tract diseases than the disciplined
child for often such a child will de-
~liberately disobey health rules laid
down for it and will use the common
drinking cup at school; will eat for
hidden food and at forbidden times
and will in a hundred ways expose
Itself to the attacks of disease and
the possibility of accidents. Then
what happens if such a child is taken
suddenly and perhaps violently i'll?
The long suffering doctor is called in
and it does not take him many min
utes to determine that the agonized
mother is not the proper person to
care for her own child. There is in
slant contest to make the child un-
dergo the simplest physical examina-
ton; taking its temperature must be
accomplished by main force and
while the patient mother helps (?)
at the same time she seems to suffer
in fact all the torture which the sick
and spoiled child often assumes. Of
course, the doctor says in such cases
"We must have a nurse" but at once
he is confronted with a new problem
which is another direct result of lack
of discipline. Very few good trained
nurses care to nurse children. Again
and again I have been confronted
with a situation like the following. I
call a nurse and ask her to take a
case: "What kind Of a case, Doctor?"
"a child with pneumonia" I answer.
"Sorry DOCTOR" is the reply, "but I
don't nurse children" "Why-" I
demand and invariably the answer
is that the nurse fears the child has
not been trained to obey and that
the over-fond mother will not insist
on the proper discipline in the sick
room and will not permit the nurse
to insist on it with the result that
the. doctors orders are not obeyed
and the case may end disastrously
on that account.
In such instances lack of discipline
may we'll lead to death and while we
may hope that this does not often
happen, yet we physicians know that
it or similar instances often DO hap
pen despite our best efforts.
No child can be disciplined in a
day; weary weeks of persistent eff
fort are necessary, but the young T
so constituted that their minds are
as flexible as their muscles, and
while nature is constantly debating
the proper exercises to develop the
latter, it lies with man (or more pro-
perly speaking woman) to develop
he former, and habits of discipline
once inculcated in a child become
the strongest factor in his life.
We have heard much of environ
ment versus heredity as an influence
in child development and l am a
strong believer in the supremacy of
the former over the latter. In this
belief I am supported by some Of
the most eminent pediatricians in
the world, notable among these being
DR.. Charles Gilmore Kerley, Profess
sor of Diseases Of Children of the
New York Polytechnic, and with many
more titles of distinction to his name
than I can possibly give here. DR..
Kerley devotes "a full chapter of a
ponderous book on children's diseases
to the potent influence of environ
ment on health, and incidentally, to
the value of discipline in this envir-
onment. 1t is always consoling to