At about the same time speech-drill was commenced.
In all these lessons the greatest care was taken that adequate rest should intervene between each series of efforts, and it was always found that fatigue distinctly impaired his co-ordination, as did emotion or indigestion.

When his speech grew clearer he was set tasks of learning many-syllabled words and also began to practise drawing patterns.

Every new lesson was first given under medical supervision and then continued by his mother or by the masseur.

To shorten the history it will suffice to say that in six months he was able to go to school, where with certain allowances made for his thick speech by a kindly master he did well, and returned to his home in the South able to walk without attracting attention, to speak comprehensibly, to write a good letter, and with every prospect fair for a still greater improvement, which I learn he has since made.
The important things to be recognized in the treatment of these cases are, first, that rest in proper proportion allows of the patients doing an amount of exertion which, ungoverned, or performed in wrong ways would harm them; secondly, that full feeding is of value, because these disorders are mostly of the character of degenerations and involve failure of nutrition in various directions; and, lastly, that the exactness of routine is of the highest moral and mental as well as physical importance.
Paralysis agitans needs scarcely more than to be mentioned as amenable to the same methods, with small differences in the application of details.

Body movements to counteract the tendency to rigidity in the flexor groups of spinal muscles will be especially useful, as the stiffness of these is one of the causes of displacement forward of the centre of gravity, a displacement which results in the festination symptom usually seen in such cases.