from infancy, leave them off at a certain age, for greater comfort, they are sure to become distorted; for the muscles have been so weakened by want of use, that when the artificial props are removed, they are no longer capable of supporting the body.* We laugh at the folly of the Chinese ladies, who compress their feet till they are unable to walk, and at the Africans, who flatten their noses as an indispensable requisite of beauty; but we are still further from Nature, when we imagine that the female chest is not so elegant as we can make it by the confinement of stays; and Nature, accordingly, shows her resentment by rendering so many of our fashionable ladies, who thus incase themselves with steel or whalebone, deformed either in the chest, the shoulders, or the spine.† Portal, however, allows of stays being occasionally worn by old people who are very feeble, and even by children; and he is supported in this by the great anatomist, Winslow. If stays, however, are worn, and it should be done with great caution, we must altogether prohibit the use of whalebone or steel as decidedly injurious. The materials should all be * "Dans un age avancé, les muscles du dos, à force d'avoir été comprimés, et d'être restés dans l'inaction, sont devenus incapables de maintenir le tronc en equilibre."-PORTAL, Sur Rachitisme. + DR. GREGORY's Comparative View. elastic, so as to yield to every movement without compressing any part of the body. Dr. Dods recommends stays of fine white woollen stocking web, doubled, and cut into forms; instead of whalebone or steel, stripes of jean are stitched closely down on both sides, in the places where the whalebones are usually put. "These give," he says, "sufficient firmness, while the elastic web, between them, admits of the free motion of the body in all directions. The bosom part may be made as usual, entirely of jean, for the purpose of supporting the breasts." We should advise the addition of pieces of cat gut, sewed within the stripes of jean; or, perhaps, the new invented process of manufacturing Indian rubber may furnish something superior to any elastic material hitherto tried. An instrument called steel boddice, is one of the most mischievous inventions of the stay-kind which ingenuity has yet devised. We sincerely hope that none of our readers will have the temerity to employ such a contrivance, as it will be almost certain to produce deformity, or increase it where it has already begun to appear. Those made to lengthen or shorten, which is considered as an improvement, are by far the most dangerous. BACK BOARDS. The multiplicity of novel instruments, of which we have now an almost endless variety, has, fortu nately, rendered back boards rather unfashionable. They were employed for a similar purpose to braces and stays; namely, to keep the body both upright and immoveable, with the head elevated, and the shoulders pulled unnaturally backwards. It was also absurdly imagined that they enlarged the chest, and thereby prevented the attacks of consumption; but, from what we have said of the effects of braces, in producing chicken-breast, and flatness of the ribs, it must be evident that the back board must have a still more injurious effect of the same kind, although we leave entirely out of consideration, the torture which it always inflicts on the poor child that is forced to wear it. There cannot be a doubt but that back boards are a powerful instrument also, for promoting distortions and twists of the spine, by weakening the strength of the muscles by which the upright position of the body is chiefly supported. COLLARS. Several instruments, differing very considerably from each other, have been constructed under this name, and as they are usually attached to braces, stays, back boards, and similar machines, they fall naturally to be considered in this place. We quite agree with Dr. Dods, in saying, "that of all the contrivances which have been invented to torture children, and to produce or aggravate deformities, none can rank higher in mischievous severity than collars. COMMON BACK COLLAR. This has been so long a fashionable apparatus, as to be considered, by many, as an indispensable part of a young lady's dress. As it acts chiefly on the mistaken and erroneous principle, which we have so fully exposed, and produces effects altogether contrary to those intended, we hope, that no mother, who wishes her daughters to have fine figures, will ever permit it to be worn. Instruments of this description may be seen in abundance, at the shops of the manufacturers of trusses; such as Mr. Callum's, in Long-acre. THE LONDON COLLAR. This instrument of torture and deformity is, we are sorry to say, in much repute in London, and is, to our astonishment, recommended by some men, who ought to know science better. The surgeon, indeed, who recommends such instruments, evidently wants to get rid of his patients by turning them over to instrument makers, who, ignorantly, attempt to press in by iron plates "the projecting shoulder, and the hip that is out," and tell the credulous mother, that it should not be considered as a machine, but as a pair of stays, in which ladies may go to court. It is, in our opinion, one of the best adapted instru D |