290 APPENDIX. 



a subject of very serious consideration, for besides the 

 personal defects thus induced, these causes, or their con- 

 sequences, often produce derangement in the functions 

 of the viscera, which in their turn, superinduce either 

 consumptions, or other lingering diseases, which it is ex- 

 ceedingly difficult, or impossible to remedy, and which 

 therefore end in death. 



In cities, personal deformity, among the higher class- 

 es has become so common, that it seems to form a char- 

 acteristic of the age in which we live. A few years 

 since, and perhaps even at the present time, such was 

 the prevalence of curved spines among those females 

 who gave tone to the fashions, that it actually became 

 the ton to be crooked, and many fashionables, who had 

 escaped any misfortune in this respect, contrived to give 

 the upper part of their spinal columns a gentle curve, so 

 as to imitate the fashionable stoop, of these female ex- 

 quisites. And in many instances where there was not 

 the least intention of becoming permanently deformed, 

 but only to be in the fashion for the season, this genteel 

 stoop became a habit, and nature not liking such imposi- 

 tions, has taken these poor devotees at their word, and 

 having formed the cartilages of their back bones into 

 wedges, has forever prevented their regaining that noble 

 position which it was intended that man alone, among 

 all created beings, should assume. These are therefore 

 doomed to continue in one, and the same fashion, for the 

 remainder of their lives. 



EFFECTS OF PRESSURE ON THE MUSCLES OF THE BACK. 



It is well known to physiologists, that if pressure be 

 made, and continued on any part of the system, the 

 part so pressed will be gradually diminished in conse- 

 quence. Thus if one limb be tightly bandaged, for a 

 length of time, it will become smaller* than the other. 

 To understand the reason of this, it is necessary to 

 state, that every part of the system is furnished with 

 two sets, or kinds of vessels, called the capillaries, one 

 set being designed to secrete, or produce ; and the other 

 to absorb, or remove; and that in the living animal, both 



