334 Qn Gymnastic Exercises, 



the ligaments by which the vertebrsB are held together. Under 

 these circumstances, little good can be done, if the patient be 

 allowed to walk or ride, instead of being immediately placed in 

 a proper position of rest. The apparatus which holds the dif- 

 ferent parts of the column together being thus relaxed and 

 weakened, the spine yields to the superincumbent weight, and 

 hence the individual vertebrae fall still farther out of their right 

 line*. Patients should, therefore, never go through fatiguing 

 exercises, unless they can take complete rest afterwards, and 

 in such positions as would facilitate the growth of the bones 

 and ligaments in the manner desired. But, in truth, the value 

 of exercises has been over-rated :— notwithstanding all that 

 has been said, both in this country and in France, no cures 

 have been effected in this way; and the issue of many cases 

 has been such as to prove, that exercises are chiefly useful in 

 counteracting the debilitating effects of certain other necessary 

 modes of treatment. AVhen we hear of parents still hoping 

 that their children will be completely cured merely by going 

 through certain forms of exercise, we cannot help thinking it 

 strange, that they should have overlooked the fact that many 

 persons whose situation in life has doomed them to active and 

 laborious exercise of the muscles of the limbs and spine, 

 should continue to be as much or more deformed than weak 

 and delicate girls. Even some of the watermen on the Thames 

 continue distorted, although they are constantly engaged in 

 rowing. But it has been said, that exercises can at least do 

 no harm in cases of distortion : there is much danger in this 

 opinion, for the curve may appear to depend merely on weak- 



* There is much similarity between the curves of a tree and of the 

 spine. In both, the first bend is at the lower part, and in each, the upper 

 part strives to become perpendicular to the base by a series of curves. 

 These curves of the tree will increase if some artificial support be not 

 given, and so it is with those of the spine ; we should therefore imitate 

 the operations of the gardener so far as to prop up the spine, and par- 

 ticularly after the power of the ligaments and muscles which are the 

 natural supports has been expended by exercises. But we should not 

 carry this analogy too far ; for were we constantly to support the curved 

 spine, the muscles would be rendered useless. It would be an interest- 

 ing experiment to try whether the wood of a tree, which had been some 

 time encased in props, was equally dense and strong as one which had 

 been left to support itself. It would probably be found in a state analo- 

 gous to that of a bone which had not been used. 



