It is seldom that trouble is so exclusively due to the limitations which people place around an individual. Usually it is brought about by a combination of restrictions from without and inhibitions within. This is illustrated by the difficulty which Stuart Weston found in making one of the most common adjustments, the adjustment to sickness.
His disease was tuberculosis. He had been ill for three years. Most people in such a predicament follow the advice of a physician and take the cure at a sanatorium. This Weston did not do. Despite the urging of his friends and his medical advisors, he remained at home, working intermittently, as his health permitted. Gradually he grew weaker. His family also suffered. At the end of three years his wife was showing the strain of having his invalidism added to the care of five boys and girls. Two of the children had developed symptoms suggestive of tuberculosis, and discouragement had settled down over the whole family.
The causes of this failure to make the adjustment to sickness lay partly with Weston and partly with the people and things about him. He had been prejudiced against the State Sanatorium
