54 PERSONAL APPEARANCES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. 



contracted, long and narrow chest is sadly too common. 

 By no means indicative of present disease, it yet shows a 

 lessened lung capacity more plainly than any other 

 surface indication, and is therefore to be regarded as a 

 warning sign. What produces this expiratory form of 

 chest ? It may be assumed to be due to no single condition, 

 but rather the grafting of faults of training, faults of dress, 

 superadded to those primary defects over which the pos- 

 sessor has no control, and for which heredity is re- 

 sponsible, and the artificial existence of the race more 

 responsible still. The preventable causes ought to be 

 removed, and all should be done that is possible to 

 remedy or lessen the unpreventable. A multitude of 

 errors in our artificial, over-cultured modern life, ought to 

 be, nay, must be, cleared away; and stricter attention 

 paid to the laws of health if the tendency to this defect is 

 to be combatted at all. That it ever can be thoroughly 

 and completely overcome, would, however, seem almost 

 impossible, seeing that so many of the essentials of civi- 

 lisation depend upon the sacrifice of health ; and number- 

 less trades and occupations of themselves favour the per- 

 petuation of the defect. Sedentary occupations, especially 

 such as require constant bending to work ; the evil pro- 

 duced by close study over books on benches which afford 

 no support for the back, and the want of complete and 

 systematic exercise of muscles and of lungs, tend to produce 



