The 'abdominal method' of singing and breathing as a cause of 'female weakness' / by Clifton E. Wing.
- Wing, Clifton Ellis, 1848-1911.
- Date:
- [1880]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The 'abdominal method' of singing and breathing as a cause of 'female weakness' / by Clifton E. Wing. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![■fi*^^** WITH ISE WRITER'S COMPLIMENTS. rtJ^o>^ ' ■ ],-.-■ THE ''ABDOMINAL METHOD'' OF SINGING AND BREATHING AS A CAUSE OP EEMALE WEAKNESSES.* By Clifton E. Wing, M.D., Boston. The following cases, all happening under observation within a comparatively short time, have seemed to me sufficiently interesting to wari'ant their publication. The calling of attention to a possible danger that, as a rule, is not suspected or dreamed of by singers or their instructors, may lead to the use of the ounce of prevention which in the case of uterine troubles is often worth much more than the pound of cure. At the present time so many of our young women are practising, and so many instructors are teaching, singing (and, in courses in elocution, breathing) by what is termed the ab- dominal method that the matter is not without importance. Case I. The first patient was a young unmarried lady, a resi- dent of this city, who had previously enjoyed excellent health. Eleven months before she consulted me she began to suffer with pain in her back and sides, bearing down, and, with these local symptoms, great depression of spirits. At about the same time her menses, which previously had come regularly each four and a half weeks, became more frequent and profuse. She found that occa- sionally after walking her symptoms were aggravated. For three months she had been troubled with frequent desire to pass water. She suffered with constipation, and movements of the bowels were at times painful. The lady had come to consult me because, as she said, she felt sure, from having heard from other sufferers with uterine troubles their symptoms, that she had the same trouble herself. Upon my asking what she thought could have induced such a difficulty, she at once replied that she felt certain that she had injured heiself by singing by the abdominal method, which she had taken much inte- rest in and had practised a good deal; that from the first it had made her feel badly, when she had previously been well; that, find- * A paper read before the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, at its meeting, November 22, 1880, and communicated to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22275277_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
