GEN. I. SPEC. III.

Entasia

were had to friction, bark, and cold-bathing, with due attention to air, diet, exercise and rest; the children of the Rhachybia. opulent would perhaps stand a chance of being as stout, distortion of as straight, and as well-shapen as those of the laborious poor."

Muscular

the spine.

Unculti

vated compared with cultivated youth.

The simple fact is that the system of discipline is carried too far, and rendered much too complicated; and ART, which should never be more than the hand-maid of NATURE, is elevated into her tyrant. In rustic life we have health and vigour, and a pretty free use of the limbs and the muscles, because all are left to the impulse of the moment to be exercised without restraint; the country girl rests when she is weary, and in whatever position she chooses or finds easiest; and walks, hops, or runs as her fancy may direct when she has recovered herself; she bends her body, and erects it as she lists, and the flexor and extensor muscles are called into an equal and harmonious play. There may be some degree of awkwardness, and there generally will be, in her attitudes and movements; and the great scope of female discipline should consist in correcting this. With this it should begin, and with this it should terminate, whether our object be directed to giving grace to the uncultivated human figure or the uncultivated brute. We may modify the action of muscles in common use, or even call more into play than are ordinarily exercised, as in various kinds of dancing; but the moment we employ one set of muscles at the expense of another; keep the extensors on a full stretch from day to day by forbidding the head to stoop, or the back to be bent; and throw the flexors of these organs into disuse and despisal; we destroy the harmony of the frame instead of adding to its elegance; weaken the muscles that have the disproportionate load cast upon them; render the rejected muscles torpid and unpliant ; sap the foundation of the general health, and introduce a crookedness of the spine instead of guarding against it. The child of the opulent, while too young to be fettered with a fashionable dress, or drilled into the discipline of our female schools, has usually as much health, and as

GEN. I. SPEC. III.

Entasia

Muscular

distortion of

little tendency to distortion, as the child of the peasant; but let these two, for the ensuing eight or ten years, change places with each other; let the young heiress of Rhachybia. opulence be left at liberty; and let the peasant-girl be restrained from her freedom of muscular exertion in play the spine. and exercise of every kind; and instead of this let her be compelled to sit bolt upright, in a high narrow chair with a straight back that hardly allows of any flexion to the sitting muscles, or of any recurvation to the spine; and let the whole of her exercise, instead of irregular play and frolic gaiety, be limited to the staid and measured march of Melancholy in the Penseroso of Milton:

With even step and musing gait ;

to be regularly performed for an hour or two every day, and to constitute the whole of her corporeal relaxation from month to month, girded moreover, all the while, with the paraphernalia of braces, bodiced stays, and a spiked collar, and there can be little doubt that, while the child of opulence shall be acquiring all the health and vigour her parents could wish for, though it may be with a colour somewhat too shaded with brown, and an air somewhat less elegant than might be desired, the transplanted child of the cottage will exhibit a shape as fine, and a demeanour as elegant as fashion can communicate, but at the heavy expense of a languor and relaxation of fibre that no stays or props can compensate, and no improvement of figure can atone for.

amusements

grace of

Surely it is not necessary, in order to acquire all the Muscular air and gracefulness of fashionable life, to banish from not inconthe hours of recreation the old rational amusements of sistent with battledore and shuttlecock, of tennis, trap-ball, or any figure. other game that calls into action the bending as well as the extending muscles, gives firmness to every organ, and the glow of health to the entire surface.

Such, and a thousand similar recreations, varied according to the fancy, should enter into the school-drilling of the day, and alternate with the grave procession and the measured dance, for there is no occasion to banish

Such should

intermix

with those in ordinary use.

SPEC. III. Entasia

Muscular

GEN. I. either; although many of the more intricate and venturous opera dances, as the Bolero, should be but occasionally Rhachybia. and moderately indulged in; since, as has been suffidistortion of ciently shown by Mr. Shaw," we have daily opportunithe spine. ties of observing, not only the good effects of well-regulated exercise, but also the actual deformity which arises from the disproportionate developement that is produced by the undue exertion of particular classes of muscles*. It may be observed," continues the same excellent writer, "that the ligaments of the ankles of some of the most admired dancers are so unnaturally stretched that, in certain postures, as in the Bolero dance, the tibia nearly touches the floor. So bad, indeed, is the effect occasionally produced by a frequent stretching of the ligaments, that the feet of many of them are deformed: for the ligaments which bind the tarsal and metatarsal bones together become so much lengthened by dancing and standing on the tips of the toes, that the natural arch of the foot is at length destroyed.” †

Such the

best preven

Such then are the best preventive means against mustive means. cular or ligamentous distortion of the young female frame, and especially of the vertebral column, in conjunction with pure air, plain diet, and well-regulated hours of rest.

Remedial means.

Cupping

sometimes

necessary.

If, notwithstanding such means, a tendency to crookedness on either side should manifest itself, evidenced by the symptoms already pointed out, no time should be lost in making an accurate examination of the spinal chain: and if such tendency should be accompanied with pains about the pelvis and lower extremities, our attention should be particularly directed to the state of the vertebræ seated in the centre of the different flexures of the column, but especially of the lumbar, for it is probable, in this case, that one or more of them may be in a state of inflammation.

Where this is the case, the usual means of taking off inflammatory action, and especially depletion, by cupping

* On the Nature and Treatment of Distortions, &c., p. 15. Lond, Svo. 1823.

+ Id. p. 17.

GEN. I.

Entasia

SPEC. III. Rhachybia.

Muscular

glasses, should be instantly had recourse to. But where the cause is debility alone, and a want of equilibrium between antagonist sets of muscles, rest, reclination, general tonics, especially myrrh, steel, and in many cases distortion of the sulphate of quinine, sea-bathing, and in effect what the spine. ever may tend to introduce a greater firmness of fibre More commonly and general vigour of constitution, constitute the best tonics. plan of treatment.

ing:

should be

To these should be added a series of friction, and es- Friction and pecially of shampooing or manipulation applied down the shampoowhole course of the spine, and particularly that part of it where the distortion is most evident: and it may be of advantage, as proposed by Dr. Dods, to direct the course of the manipulation in a particular manner to such transverse processes of the vertebræ as appear peculiarly elevated, so as artfully, and by insinuation, to assist in restoring them to their proper position. It will also be found expedient in most cases to illine the hand with oil or some other unctuous substance, in order to prevent the friction from irritating or excoriating the skin.

applied with dexterity.

How treated when held as a strumous

. Those who ascribe the disease to a strumous diathesis in every instance, have of course a medical treatment of their own adapted to this view of the case. Such is the complaint. practice of Dr. Jarrold who has lately written a treatise upon this subject containing many valuable hints, but who limits the seat of the malady to the intervertebral ⚫ cartilages, as he does its cause to a strumous taint. His Materia Medica, therefore, for the present purpose, is nearly restricted to burnt sponge and carbonate of soda. “Conceiving", says he, that "there might be some relation be- Plan of tween it and bronchocele, I have made use of similar remedies."* To which he occasionally adds, when the debility is considerable, twenty drops of nitric acid daily. And with this simple process he tells us that he has been so success- his alleged ful in a restoration of health, strength, plumpness and uprightness, that "medical treatment is seldom further required, unless the appetite and digestion be impaired." Not acceding to this causation, I have not tried the

* Enquiry into the Causes of the Curvature of the Spine, &c. ut suprà,

P. 119.

Jarrold:

success.

GEN. I. SPEC. III. Entasia

Muscular

the spine. Probably less owing

plan; which seems here to have been far more successful than in bronchocele itself; even when the more powerful Rhachybia. aid of iodine is called into co-operation, which it is singudistortion of lar that Dr. Jarrold does not appear to have had recourse to. To all the confederate means, however, of recumbency, friction, shampooing, pure air, and occasional exercise, he is peculiarly friendly: and as these have of themselves effected a cure in the hands of various other practitioners, it is not improbable that Dr. Jarrold is far more indebted to such confederates than he is aware of; and that his auxiliaries have been of more service to him than his main force.

to his direct

than his auxiliary

means.

Position.

Nature of couch.

Inclined plane, and inclined

position.

Curved po

sition proposed by Dods.

Either may

be right or wrong, occasionally.

It has been made a question of some importance, which is the best position for a patient to rest in who is labouring under the complaint before us, or has a striking tendency to it; as also what is the best formed couch for him to recline upon?

It

All seem to agree that the couch should be incompressible, or nearly so, in order that the weight of the body may be equally, instead of unequally sustained, and not one part elevated and another depressed: and hence a mattress is judged preferable to a bed; and a plain board is by many esteemed preferable to a mattress. is also very generally agreed that the board or mattress should form an inclining plane, so that the body, placed directly on the back, may be kept perpetually on the stretch; while Dr. Dods maintains in opposition to this. general opinion, that the line should be horizontal, or even curved; that a position on the back is by no means necessary, and that a posture of extension cannot fail of being injurious, and adding to the strength or extent of the disease.

Either of these opinions may be right or wrong, according to the nature of the case; and hence neither of them can be correct as an universal proposition. Ease and refreshment are the great points to be obtained, and whatever couch, or whatever position will give the largest proportion of these is the couch or the position to be recommended: whether that of supine extension, or relaxed flexure. Dr. Dods, who refers all kinds of lateral distortion to