Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/42

 just as they are budding forth into womanhood, blasting their prospects when fairest, and shrouding in gloomy clouds the bright morning of life.

The reader may find elsewhere portrayed minutely the insidious, stealthy advance of this disease. Here we have to do with its prevention and its cure. It often leads to what is called "spinal irritation," and is usually treated by blisters, by cups, by scoring the back with hot irons, and by long continuance in bed. These severe remedies may bring good results, but in most cases an entirely different and milder method may be employed with the best effect. It is that by support. The spine, the shoulders, and the sides are propped and sustained by light steel braces with springs and pads, so that the curvature is impossible. The patient is quite as much at rest when standing as when in bed, and the irritation and pain, caused as they are by the pressure of the spine in its unnatural position, disappear at once. We have known women who had never stood up for years, without suffering, walk erect and with ease as soon as a carefully-made, accurately-fitting brace was applied. But such an instrument must be