PERSONAL APPEARANCES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. 55 



this contraction of the chest, and act with greatly increased 

 force when the organism is young and pliant. The round 

 shoulder goes along with the narrow chest, and unless 

 preventive measures are taken in early life, both become 

 attributes of the individual which cannot be shaken off. 



Narrow chests are mainly to be feared as indicating a 

 diminished lung capacity and breathing space. But it is 

 wrong to think that they are characteristic of, or predis- 

 pose to consumption, for if anything, the wide though 

 flattened chest is more to be feared than the long and 

 narrow. This terribly fatal form of lung disease often 

 selects for its victims the broad-chested, even robust 

 looking ; and whilst on this it may be well to point out 

 one very striking fallacy in connexion with the shape of 

 the chest in this affection, a disease which cripples the 

 lungs, and proceeds to their destruction. As a portion 

 of lung disappears the chest-wall falls in, and hollows 

 appear under the collar-bones. Now it might be thought, 

 and it often is thought, that when this is extremely marked, 

 so that the collar-bone seems to stand out one or two 

 inches from the chest, the disease is advanced and the 

 result hopeless. It is true that there is advanced disease 

 at that part of the lung, but as to hopelessness, it is quite 

 the reverse. The shrinking of the chest shows that the 

 disease is on the road to recovery at that spot, and is a 

 sign rather of arrest than of progress. Consumption is not 



