The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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16 The Health Bulletin April, 1921
mitted a crime but as a small child
he had committed an antisocial act.
The period of convalescence from a
disease is always very trying and may
result in permanent enfeeblement of
the character. Unable to take part in
games, the convalescent child grows
dreamy and eccentric. Again to refer
to the problem of the delicate child.
The previous illness may be a starting
point for antisocial behavior.
Other obvious physical defects which
contribute largely to delinquency are
facial birthmark, hare-lip, club-foot,
postmeningeal palsies, and supernumerary
fingers.
Not every physical peculiarity which
contributes to delinquency is a defect
small hands and tiny fingers are a convenience
to the pickpocket ; spinal deformities
may win sympathy for the
beggar from the passerby.
Now we return to the mental side,
because it seems to me this must receive
a great deal of attention. Quotation
here is from an editorial which appeared
last week in the Journal of the
American Medical Association :
"The sources of delinquency are not
in psychiatry itself, and if psychiatry
is to be preventive it must penetrate
those fields that are a part of the
normal life of every person. If psychiatry,
as is evident, is not a selfsufficient
science, the efforts should be
redoubled to prevent personality and
behavior difficulties before the human
misfits are created. The home, the
schools, the churches, the industries and
other agencies that seriously affect
human behavior now demand consideration
as never before. This should be
an era of well conceived social agencies,
of intelligently directed social workers,
of properly motivated public interestall
concerned with a common problem.
Even an enlightened psychiatry cannot
progress rapidly against 'the whole current
of a society organized along unpsychiatric
lines.' "
Certain broad conclusions, as laid
down by Burt seem worth while here.
Certainly all young persons who show
delinquent tendencies should be dealt
with at the earliest possible stage. The
delinquent must be approached individually,
as a unique human being with
peculiar constitution and peculiar problems.
The remedies should be adapted
not so much to the nature of the offense
but to the nature of the factors producing
it. Fuller knowledge is needed of
the causes of delinquency.
My final word is that the prevention
of delinquency, as well as other vital
problems in society, is bound up with
this whole problem of child health and
child health education. I wish to pay
my tribute to the effort made by the
National Congress of Parent-Teacher
Associations and the United States
Bureau of Education in launching that
campaign for the improvement of the
health of, and the prevention of defects
in, preschool children. I like their
slogan—their purpose was to help the
homes get the children in a healthy
condition, so when old enough to go to
school they could go as children ready
to learn and not as bundles of parental
neglect. My other point is that this
program of health education, which is
intended to promote health in the children
in the homes, the children in the
schools, the children and youth in industry
; this program must recognize all
the elements in health—physical, mental,
emotional, social, and the character
elements. The program must be broadened,
and there must be more soldiers
in this army of interested and devoted
adults, an army which is needed to
make any real progress in this program,
and they must be trained very
broadly and thoroughly in order to
grapple with this program. I quite
agree with my good fi'iend Dr. Mc-
Brayer when he says that the children
of North Carolina are the most important
resource in the State. I hope
you know the children of North Carolina,
their potentialities, their needs,
their natures, for I am sure that you
and all other citizens of the State feel
that, more than any other value, they
ought to be conserved and helped to
develop their best for North Carolina.
SOMETEVIES IT AVORKS
Mrs. Hicks : I don't take any stock
in these faith cures brought about by
the laying on of hands.
Mrs. Wicks : Well, I do ; I cured my
little boy of the cigarette habit that
way. Medical Pickwick.