COULSON ON DEFORMITIES OF THE CHEST.
SINCE the pernicious effects of tight-lacing have been so often demonstrated, the practice has fallen off, though we doubt if it have been very generally discontinued; nor is it likely to be, while lacing at all endures. When it may please the sovereign arbitresses of shape to bring natural proportions into fashion, who can tell? But if a future Queen were to have the good sense to patronize the Medicean waist, and stays were once to go out, we should think that there would be small chance of their coining into use again,—for surely, to all unsophisticated maidens, they must be very uncomfortable. Be it known, moreover, to our fair readers, that the wearing of stays, even though they be not very tightly laced, is the originating cause of nearly a hundred diffe- rent diseases, arising from distortions of the form and morbid action of the internal organs. See the catalogue given in Mr. COULSON'S treatise.
This volume, though it contains little original matter, and is written in too technical a style for popular use, will be productive of good by bringing the influence of the highest medical autho- rities to bear upon an absurd and injurious custom. The cure of congenital malformations of the chest, such as depressed sternum, and what is called a " pigeon-breasted" form of the chest, is also treated of. Two or three plates are given at the end to illustrate the deformities. In cases of fiat or narrow chest, DONALD WALKER'S Indian sceptre exercise is recommended as preferable to the use of the dumb-bells.
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