108 RESULTING FROM INACTIVITY 



further aggravated by the tight pressure of the stays 

 interrupting the play of the muscles, and rendering 

 them in a few months more powerless than ever. 

 In spite, however, of the weariness and mischief 

 which result from it, the same system is persevered 

 in ; and, during the short time allotted to that nomi- 

 nal exercise, the formal walk, the body is left almost 

 as motionless as before, and only the legs are called 

 into activity. The natural consequences of this 

 treatment are, debility of the body, curvature of the 

 spine, impaired digestion, and, from the diminished 

 tone of all the animal and vital functions, general ill 

 health : and yet, while we thus set Nature and her 

 laws at defiance, we presume to express surprise at 

 the prevalence of female deformity and disease ! 



It would be easy, were it required, to prove that 

 the picture here drawn is not over-charged. A 

 single instance, from a note appended by Dr. Forbes 

 to an excellent treatise on " Physical Education," 

 by Dr. Barlow of Bath, will suffice. After copying 

 the programme of a boarding-school for young 

 ladies, which exhibits only one hour's exercise, con- 

 sisting of a walk, arm in arm, on the high road, and 

 that only when the weather is fine at the particular hour 

 allotted to it, in contrast with nine hours at school or 

 tasks, and three and a half at optional studies or 

 works, Dr. Forbes adds : " That the practical re- 

 sults of such an astounding regimen are by no 

 means overdrawn in the preceding pages is suffi- 

 ciently evinced by the following fact, a fact which, 

 we will venture to say, may be verified by inspec- 

 tion of thousands of boarding-schools in this coun- 

 try. We lately visited in a large town a hoarding- 

 school containing forty girls ; and we learned on close 

 and accurate inquiry, that there was not one of the girls 

 who had been at the school two years (and the majority 

 had been as lon&) that were not more or less CROOKED ! 

 Our patient was in this predicament ; and we could 

 perceive (what all may perceive who meet that 



