76 DISEASES CLASS 1. 2. 2. 16. 



lined with fur for the hands to take hold of occasionally, and 

 also to go under the arms. By these means I should hope great 

 advantage from gradually extending the spine during the inac- 

 tivity of the muscles of the back; and that it may be done with- 

 out disturbing the sleep of the patient, and if this should hap- 

 pen, the bow is made to open by a joint at the summit of it, so as 

 to be instantly disengaged from the neck by the hand of the 

 wearer. This bow I have now used with advantage on one pa- 

 tient, and it may be had from Mr. Harrison, whitesmith, Bridge- 

 gate, Derby. 



It is also possible that a slight compress on the prominent part 

 of a curved spine might be applied with advantage both in sleep 

 and in waking hours, if it could be nicely held on the part by a 

 weak and very flexible spring, with a proper counter-pressure on 

 some distant part; but this would require more art than could be 

 managed, except by those who have very accurate mechanical 

 ideas, and must differ with every kind of curvature. Thus if the 

 prominent part of the curve of the spine be on one side, a stuffed 

 cushion fixed to the centre of a long thin steel spring should be 

 applied on the prominence; one end of this long spring should be 

 bent by a strap joined to a waistcoat on the opposite shoulder, 

 and the other end of it by a strap joined to drawers on the op- 

 posite hip; the degree of pressure to be adjusted by the tightness 

 of these straps. If the prominent part of a curved spine be ex- 

 actly behind, the ends of the long spring should extend from the 

 lowest bone of the neck to the os coccigis, and should have its 

 two ends attached to the top of a waistcoat, and to the waistband 

 of a pair of drawers. 



It will be from hence easily perceived, that all other methods 

 of confining or directing the growth of young people should be 

 used with great skill; such as back-boards, or bandages, or stocks 

 for the feet; and that their application should not be continued 

 too long at a time, lest worse consequences should ensue, than 

 the deformity they were designed to remove. To this may be 

 added, that the stiff erect attitude taught by some modern danc- 

 ing masters does not contribute to the grace of person, but 

 rather militates against it; as is well seen in one of the prints 

 in Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty; andx is exemplified by the 

 easy grace of some of the ancient statutes, as of the Venus de 

 Medicis, and the Antinous, and in the works of some modern 

 artists, as in a beautiful print of Hebe feeding an Eagle, painted 

 by Hamilton, and engraved by Eginton, and many of the figures 

 of Angelica Kauffman. 



Where the bone of one of the vertebra of the back has been 

 swelled on both sides of it, so as to become protuberant, issues 



