THE NERVOUS CHILD AND HIS MANAGEMENT

The well-poised, effective, emotionally stable adult human being is the exception rather than the rule in modern life. Guthrie¹ believes that "neurasthenia probably causes more misery and pain than any organic disease," and Ernest Jones² states, that "neuroses constitute, perhaps, the most widely spread form of disease." A recent institutional census³ shows that on Jan. 1, 1918, one individual of every 405 in the United States was definitely insane to an extent requiring custodial care. Procrastination in locking the "barn door" is proverbial and is particularly common in nervous and mental disorders. For this both the public and the medical profession are to blame, but more particularly the latter. Physicians deride the efforts of laymen toward that little knowledge of matters medical which they consider renders them dangerous to their own well-being, and while this attitude may be advisable under some circumstances, it can be justified only