298 APPENDIX. 



a sunject of very serious consideration, for beside 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 con- 

 sumptions, or other lingering diseases, which it is exceed- 

 ingly difficult, or impossible to remedy, and which there- 

 fore end in death. 



954. In cities, personal deformity among the higher 

 classes has become so common, that it seems to form a 

 characteristic 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 for ever 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. 



955. 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. 



955. 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 



