In contrast with this method of surprise is the “method of disregard,” also originated by Bruns and used by him in cases of hysteria other than those involving muscular paralysis—cases, for example, of obsessions, facial “tics,” spasms, or convulsive seizures. In employing the method of disregard the little patient is carefully watched by doctor and nurses but in such a manner that he is led to believe they are paying scarcely any attention to him. As a result the idea that, despite his own conviction, his malady must be most insignificant, gradually takes increasing possession of him, and in proportion as it does so the hysterical symptoms disappear. But, the reader may ask, does this truly mean that the hysteria itself has been cured? Do not these methods, one and all, achieve merely the removal of symptoms? Is not the child still suggestible enough to develop a new variety of hysterical disturbances should occasion arise? Such objections are not without force, though in practice it has been observed that the cure of the symptoms by suggestion does actually seem to weaken the tendency to future hysterical outbreaks of any kind. To be on the safe side, however, it is always well to institute environmental changes of a sort that will make for a constantly closer approach by the child to a normal life. With this, we come to the point that is of supreme interest to parents. Almost without exception it is in the home that the seeds are sown which may afterward bear the bitter fruit of hysteria, whether bearing it in childhood or not until some critical period comes in later years. It is the child who is “spoiled,” or kept by unwise parents in a state of nervous tension and excitement; the child whose sense of moral responsibility is not properly developed, and whose natural suggestibility is unduly heightened by the superstitions, fears, and eccentricities of its elders; it is such a child who, soon or late, may be counted on to manifest some hysterical taint, perhaps not of the extreme type illustrated by the cases narrated above, but nevertheless of a sort making against happiness, usefulness, and success in the world of active effort. Or, to state the situation in more detail in the words of a physician of my acquaintance: