EMOTIONS VERSUS HEALTH IN WOMEN. 505 



bility until it often becomes a fixed habit of mind ; an undue sensibil- 

 ity of the supreme centers to emotional ideas is created, which can 

 only be maintained at the expense of sound health of body and of 

 mind. First among these are certain home influences that are brought 

 to bear upon a little girl from her earliest childhood, which foster in 

 her self-consciousness and introspection. 



She is generally permitted narrower limits, within which she can 

 play, can dress, can succeed, than are allowed to her brother, even 

 when her physique is equally able. She is housed more closely, her 

 out-of-door sports are fewer and less interesting, and her dress is too 

 often a limitation to her freedom. Such restrictions of her liberty, 

 and constant reference to the fact that her sex denies her this or that 

 employment or pleasure, tend to make a child self-conscious and emo- 

 tionally overactive. Methods of family discipline which depend upon 

 appeals to the emotional natures of children have like unhealthy re- 

 sults, for they promote a condition of mental commotion and unrest 

 harmful to children, who require an even atmosphere for the mind as 

 well as for the body. There are often undue claims made upon little 

 children for the demonstration of their affections, and this is especially 

 true of girls. 



In a paper on "Emotional Prodigality among Children," read 

 before a dental society some years ago by Dr. C. F. Taylor, it was 

 argued that stimulation of the emotions among children conduced not 

 only to diseases of the spine, but also to dental caries. 



Dr. Taylor says : " In my large practice among children, I am cer- 

 tain that scores are literally killed by the excessive amount of emo- 

 tional excitement which they are forced to endure. All this hugging 

 and kissing and talking to them is to excite responses of the same 

 emotional nature in the child for the pleasure and gratification of the 

 parents and friends." And again he says : " I believe that three fifths 

 of the spinal diseases which occur in children are dii-ectly traceable 

 to mental overaction. And this because a large proportion of these 

 cases gets well without other treatment than a withdrawal from the 

 exciting cause of emotional disturbance." The writer does not sub- 

 scribe to this view of the causation of lateral curvature, except in so 

 far as any influence which weakens the body may be a factor in this 

 affection, but the opinion is of interest as suggesting the extent of 

 this and kindred influences. 



The literature which little girls are permitted to read may be held 

 responsible for much emotional stimulation of an unhealthy character. 

 If a man be known by the company he keeps, it is equally true that 

 he is known by the books he reads. The last quarter of a century has 

 opened a wide vista of healthful delight for children through the green 

 fields of modern child literature, but the prospect is not yet entirely 

 fair. The hot-house atmosphere prevails in many volumes, which owe 

 their birth to the present decade. 



