modifying the diet or by excluding this or that article of food. The
frequency of the vomiting is such that it is apt to have brought
discredit one after the other upon almost every article of food which
the child can take, with the result that many useful and necessary
foods have been abandoned for long on the ground that they are the
cause of the dyspepsia. A permanent cure will only be effected when
the faults of environment have been overcome, when the cause of the
nervous unrest has been removed, and when the child's mind is at
peace.

Nervous vomiting of this kind is not difficult to control, if those in
charge of the children can be made to understand that the cause lies
in the anxiety which they themselves show before the child, increasing
his own apprehension or adding to his sense of power or importance.
Once the child is convinced that his conduct excites no particular
interest, the vomiting soon ceases. In more than one instance,
vomiting which has persisted for many months has stopped at once after
the matter has been fully explained to the parents. In the most
inveterate case of this sort which has come under my notice, the child
was regularly sick as soon as he caught sight of a white cloth being
laid on the table for meals. Yet even this child never vomited when he
was under the charge of a particular nurse who had to return more than
once to the family, and on each occasion was successful in breaking
the habit.




CHAPTER IV