CRYING.
Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
it.
"Crying," says Dr. Dewees, "should be looked upon as an exercise of much
importance;" and he is sustained in this view by many eminent medical
writers.
But people generally think otherwise. Nothing is more common than the
idea that to cry is unbecoming; and children are everywhere taught, when
they suffer pain, to brave it out, and _not cry_. Such a direction--to
say nothing of its tendency to encourage hypocrisy--is wholly
unphilosophical. The following anecdote may serve in part to illustrate
my meaning. It is said to have been related by Dr. Rush.
A gentleman in South Carolina was about to undergo a very painful
surgical operation. He had imbibed the idea that it was beneath the
dignity of a man ever to say or do anything expressive of pain. He
therefore refused to submit to the usual precaution of securing the
hands and feet by bandages, declaring to his surgeon that he had nothing
to fear from his being untied, for he would not move a muscle of his
body. He kept his word, it is true; but he died instantly after the
operation, from apoplexy.
There is very little doubt, in the mind of any physiologist, in regard
to the cause of apoplexy in this case; and that it might have been
prevented by the relief which is always afforded by groans and tears.
It is, I believe, very generally known, that in the profoundest grief,
people do not, and cannot shed tears; and that when the _latter_ begin
to flow, it affords immediate relief.
I do not undertake to argue from this, that crying is so important,
either to the young or the old, that it is ever worth while to excite or
continue it by artificial means; or that a habit of crying, so easily
and readily acquired by the young, is not to be guarded against as a
serious, evil. My object was first to show the folly of those who
denounce all crying, and secondly, to point out some of its
advantages--in the hope of preventing parents from going to that extreme
which borders upon stoicism.
One of the most intelligent men I ever knew, frequently made it his
boast that he neither laughed nor cried on any occasion; and on being
told that both laughing and crying were physiologically useful, he only
ridiculed the sentiment.
Crying is useful to very young infants, because it favors the passage of
blood in their lungs, where it had not before been accustomed to travel,
and where its motion is now indispensable. And it not only promotes the
circulation of the blood, but expands the air-cells of the lungs, and
thus helps forward that great change, by which the dark-colored impure
blood of the veins is changed at once into pure blood, and thus rendered
fit to nourish the system, and sustain life.
But this is not all. Crying strengthens the lungs themselves. It does
this by expanding the little air-cells of which I have just spoken, and
not only accustoms them to being stretched, at a period, of all others,
the most favorable for this purpose, but frees them at the same time
from mucus, and other injurious accumulations.
They, therefore, who oppose an infant's crying, know not what they do.
So far is it from being hurtful to the child, that its occasional
recurrence is, as we have already seen, positively useful. Some
practitioners of medicine, in some of the more trying situations in
which human nature can be placed, even encourage their patients to
suffer tears to flow, as a means of relief.
Infants, it should also be recollected, have no other language by which
to express their wants and feelings, than sighs and tears. Crying is not
always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
circumstance that the child should remind them of it.
Crying has been called the "waste gate" of the human system; the door of
escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
healthy--most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
recurrence is injurious to any adult--a fastidious public sentiment to
the contrary notwithstanding.
Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the "Young
Mother."
All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
reader, at the statement;--this abominable practice is followed by many
a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
children!
I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
necessarily liable to abuse; though I am not sure that there are not a
few individuals to be found who may apply them in the manner above
mentioned--an application, however, which is as far removed from the
original intention of the author, as can possibly be conceived.