308 APPENDIX. 



and healthful aeration of the blood. From this cause, 

 there would arise all the consequences which come from 

 living in a vitiated atmosphere, or from breathing air 

 which contains, perhaps, only one half the usual quanti- 

 ty of oxygen, as above explained. In such cases, it is 

 possible that no other effect on the lungs themselves 

 may follow ; the subject gradually declining from general 

 debility, and such poverty of the blood as to allow of 

 no healthy secretions, and thus sink down to the grave 

 without the usual symptoms of pulmonary consumption. 

 Such may be said literally, " to die for want of breath;" 

 not however, stopped by " the destroying" but the self- 

 destroying angel, if indeed angels ever assist on such oc- 

 casions. 



987. It is perhaps singular, that this state of the lungs 

 often betrays itself by an offensive breath, without ulcer- 

 ation, or designed infliction, perhaps, on those who thus 

 violate nature's laws. But if nature is sometimes slow 

 in resenting and avenging the insults offered her, and al- 

 lows some to live on her for years who habitually violate 

 her laws, others are brought to speedy account for such 

 temerity ; for it is well known that blood-spitting, hectic 

 fever, and finally all the concomitants of consumption of 

 the lungs follow excessive lacing, and many of which 

 terminate in a short period. Healthy females, who have 

 no family predisposition, and who begin this practice late 

 in life, as from eighteen to twenty, are not so apt to suf- 

 fer as those who have such a predisposition, and are laced 

 from their childhood. 



988. In the former however, the most pernicious con- 

 sequences sometimes follow, as where a fine healthy 

 country-girl, who never had been laced, happens to visit 

 her fashionable cousins in town ; and who of course, will 

 not be seen in the streets with her, in such a countrified 

 shape. The poor girl must, therefore, be literally screwed 

 into the city form, before she is allowed to " see company," 

 and having perhaps a capacious chest, such as nature 

 formed, and this being composed of a bony framework, 

 it is impossible to bring it within the compass of the 

 fashionable mould, without lapping the ends of the ribs 

 either over or under the breast-bone. 



