Volume 2

Physiology for practical use / by various writers ; edited by James Hinton.

Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiology for practical use / by various writers ; edited by James Hinton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Others, again, suffer from a peculiarity the very reverse of that just alluded to; their breast-bones, instead of projecting or bulging, retreat and form a hollow at their lower portions. This condition is fre- quently observed in shoe-makers who have taken to their trade early in life, and whose health has not been satisfactory. Many of these operatives work with the boot or shoe constantly pressing on the lower part of the breast-bone, so that if the bone is soft, as it is in certain forms of disease, or indeed we might say as it is in all unhealthly conditions early in life, a per- manent indentation is the result. In such conditions also gymnastics is the appropriate remedy. Nor does the application of exercise to medicine cease here. Ling, an enthusiastic Swede, conceived that gymnastics might be much more widely used than they even now are in the treatment of diseased con- ditions, especially of deformities. He was, in course of time, able to erect a building devoted to this pur- pose, and even now this institution and many others on the Continent are engaged in the work of healing. There is no deformity more painful to the sufferer or to the beholder than a crooked spine. But of this there are two kinds. In one the bones are thrust abruptly backwards, so as to form a projecting angle ; and, as this generally depends on disease of the bone,