Kemp. — Oli thie Medical Aspects of Ecklcatiori. xtxi 



uitious, if attempted too soon, will bd fraught with evil, and the child will 

 languish under the accumulation of facts with which its mind is weighted." 

 Most of you are probably aware that a child begins to cut its second 

 teeth at seven or eight years of age, and finishes at about fourteen, (except 

 the cutting of wisdom teeth), and as at this time there is often a re-appearance 

 of any nervous symptoms that may have shown themselves when the first 

 teeth were being cut, I fully concur with the statement I have just read, 

 and think this period of second dentition one during which mental training 

 should be proceeded with with the utmost caution, because at this time the 

 physical growth is very active, and the animal functions are proceeding with 

 extraordinary vigour, and a large amount of rest and sleep are necessary for 

 the building up of the tissues. There is also, at this period of from seven 

 to fourteen years of age, an extreme sensitiveness of the nervous system, 

 and special liabiUty to sympathetic disturbance, as well as a special tendency 

 to the development of transmitted taints, which may be outgrown as years 

 pass by. It is generally during this period that slight causes will produce 

 St. Vitus' dance and epilepsy ; indeed, sometimes they can be traced to no 

 other cause than the cutting of a tooth. During this period also the organs 

 of assimilation and digestion are very active, and derangements which are 

 brought about by impaired nutrition are especially common. Any immode- 

 rate intellectual training at a time when these organs are enfeebled, and the 

 appetite poor, may so impoverish the quality of the blood as to increase the 

 sensitiveness of the brain and nervous centres and bring on actual disease. 

 It has been proposed by Mr. Saunders in a paper called " The Teeth as a 

 Test of Age," to adopt the successive stages in the cutting of the second 

 teeth as standards for estimating the physical capabilities of children, 

 especially in regard to those two periods which the factory laws consider 

 it of the greatest importance to determine, namely, the ages of nine and 

 thirteen years. Under nine a child is not allowed to work at all, and up to 

 thirteen it may be only employed during nine hom-s a day ; it has been 

 found necessary, owing to the untrustworthy statements of parents, to seek 

 for some test by which the capability of a child can be determined without 

 knowing its age. A standard of height was first adopted, but this on phy- 

 siological grounds is erroneous, as it is a well-known fact that the tallest 

 children are by no means always the strongest ; indeed, frequently the con- 

 trary is actually the case. According to Mr. Saunders, the degree of 

 advance of the second dentition may be considered as a much more correct 

 standard of general development of the organic frame and its physical 

 powers, and it appears from his inquiries that it may be relied on as a guide 

 to the true age and strength of children in a large proportion of cases. 



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