THE CAUSES OF PHYSICAL DEGENERACY. 483 



fcically, it is almost utterly disregarded. The necessity of breathing ia 

 recognized, and we have various formulated sayings implying that to 

 stop breathing is to stop living. But, practically, the world is trying 

 to see how little air can be actually used and, with some, this is 

 almost their only economy and next, to see how poor a quality of air 

 can sustain their life. 



One-half of the civilized race i. e., all the women, and some men 

 so dress themselves that by no possibility can they take a full breath. 

 As the lungs are never fully inflated, their capability of expansion is 

 gradually lessened. The result is, a contraction and diminution in 

 the size of the chest, a want of roundness and fulness, and both men 

 and women are "flat-chested," round-shouldered, and "sunken in." 

 The eye will recognize this, and measurement will add certainty to 

 judgment. 



Take the men of New York to-day, and not one in five hundred can 

 make a difference in the dimensions of the chest, from a full inspiration 

 to a complete expiration, of five inches, measured at the nipple. Nor 

 will the majority show an expansive capacity of even three inches. 

 With the women it is still less; probably never since extreme 

 childhood for romping days end early now have they been capable 

 of taking a full breath in the daytime, the nearest approach to it 

 being effected, not by the expansion of the chest, but by the action 

 of the abdominal muscles and the downward withdrawal of the dia- 

 phragm. 



Nor is this stated as a matter of simple curiosity ; it has a prac- 

 tical and most important bearing on the subject under consideration. 

 Supposing that the blood is sufficiently aerated without the use of the 

 full capacity of the lungs, say by an increased number of respirations 

 are not the necessities of Nature thus adequately supplied, and con- 

 sequently no injury done ? 



By no means, as every housewife's experience will abundantly 

 illustrate. In the quiet and secluded angles and nooks gather the 

 lint and dust of the whole apartment. In the corners and recesses of 

 a hospital-ward gather the miasm and the pestilence. In the unused 

 portions of machinery do we find the rust and tarnish, and the mildew 

 blasts the quiet and the still parts of all Nature. In the same way, in 

 those portions of the lungs, every minute extremity and division of 

 which is a reticulated net-work of fibres, and vessels, and tubes, 

 through which, at every expiration and subsequent inspiration, there 

 should be an unceasing ebb and flow, with new elements constantly 

 adding, and effete material perpetually renovating, yet, by reason of 

 mechanical impossibility, there gather the results of this stagnation, the 

 crassness of the blood, and those discordant elements which, had they 

 not been allowed to accumulate in these undusted retreats, would have 

 continued in the circuit of the blood, till they had arrived, in due 

 course, at some of the great glandular strainers and purifying alembics 



