BRAIN AND NERVOUS 



development of the infant mind, or 

 traordinary exertions, as to impose upon the cl 

 degree or weight of labor beyond its years. 



837. The brain and nervous system of most precocious 

 children are unusually active; but often they are stimulated 

 by injudicious education. In these cases, the nervous ener- 

 gies, that should sustain the nutritive and the other systems, 

 are absorbed in the mental Jabor. The mind may grow 

 a while at the expense of the physical organs, and the child 

 make great advancement in learning; but, in proportion as 

 the brain is unnaturally excited, the other organs are deteri- 

 orated, and the health falters, day by day, and the child may 

 sink in death from over-stimulation of the brain, in accord- 

 ance with that universal law which would have put an end 

 to life if the stomach or the muscles had been unduly ex- 

 cited and exerted to thasame degree. 



838. In youth and manhood, the brain cannot work long 

 and vigorously without the health of the rest of the body. 

 The organs are all linked together, and dependent one upon 

 another. Each must have its due supply of nervous energy ; 

 if any one has more than this, if it be stimulated to extraor- 

 dinary exertion, the others must suffer. Owing to inatten- 

 tion to the physical organs, in connection with mental action,, 

 many students, and men in the sedentary professions, suffer 

 from ill health. Ministers, lawyers, and teachers, are fre- 

 quently obliged, from this cause, to suspend or give up their 

 callings, and devote their whole attention to the recovery of 

 lost health. 



839. Health fails more frequently among students than 

 among men in the more active employments. More men 

 leave college or quit their professions than leave any other 

 callings on this account. This ill health among literary 

 men is not the necessary result of their employments ; it 

 comes from the irregular distribution of the nervous power, 

 and want of due cooperation among the various organs and 

 systems that go to sustain life. 



840. There are many examples of the happiest and most 



