Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/549

Rh If the neck-bones are held vertically, the ribs well lifted, and a moderate degree of tension exerted upon the abdominal walls, the viscera will rest upon, and within, the confines of the pelvis, and this position should be learned and practised; nor is it at all difficult if the attention is directed that way and some little familiarity acquired in maintaining the correct position. The body can not be held in normal attitudes unless the skeletal muscles are in fairly good tone. Most of these effects can be secured by a skillful use of breathing exercises.

It will be obvious to any one that those persons who habitually maintain an erect position in standing or sitting are stronger than those who stoop or slouch. It may be said that many of the last are perfectly well and strong, and it must be replied that they are not as well as and as strong as they should be, and further that their abdominal tissues are in perpetual danger, because an organ, or part of the body, which stands outside of its normal lines of adjustment comes closely to being in the position of a foreign body, and can not be so well protected by the central nervous control mechanism. Again, the position of the organs in the thorax are in less danger than those of the abdomen, because they have a well-constructed box to dwell in, but nevertheless they too are subjected to a good many perils if out of alignment. A person who stoops and allows the shoulders to sag down and forward and the ribs to fall back toward the spine, shortens the anteroposterior diameter of the thorax anywhere from two to five inches. It needs little demonstration to show that the lungs, heart, great vessels and other important structures in the thorax can not live, and move and have their proper being under such circumstances. Not only so, but prompt and adequate attention to these conditions results in not only improving the general health, but goes far toward maintaining symmetric functional action and the postponement of senile changes in the connective tissue.

In short, all these facts are rehearsed to give prominence to the conclusion, which seems to me inevitable, and abundantly demonstrated by data in my experience, that attention to proper attitudes, involving economies in interorganic relationships, is the one fundamental factor in postponing senile changes. The physiologic reason for urging care and persistence in retaining elasticity of tissues is to be found in the fact that sclerotic changes and faulty attitudes combine to interfere with peripheral vascular competence as well as peripheral innervation. To recur for a moment to the illustration used above, of the marked improvements following increased flexibility in the tissues of the upper thorax and neck, it is my opinion that this is to be brought about by thus promoting and encouraging fuller circulatory interchanges, especially of the lymphatic channels.