CHAPTER III.
CLOTHING FROM THE AGE OF ONE TO TWELVE YEARS.
WE will next suppose that Baby has been short-coated, and has attained sufficient muscular strength to preserve the erect position whilst sitting in its nurse's arms. Now is the time when its dress becomes a matter of very serious consideration, as the bones are now attaining something like solidity, and any deviation from the proper position of the body will day by day become more difficult to remedy. If the same influences of which I have before spoken be continued, the spine will even at this early age show symptoms of yielding; the natural curves of the vertebral column will be more or less distorted, the shoulders will present a rounded appearance, and the size and form of the chest have undergone injurious modification. The weight of the child by this time will become too great to permit of its constant carriage in the nurse's or the mother's arms, and it is therefore too frequently seated in a chair sufficiently high to enable it to reach the table. In front of the chair a bar is placed for the purpose of guarding against the possibility of a fall. The child is thus literally forced into a certain position, and its playthings being put before it, it will naturally reach forward to grasp them. Now mark the result. The roundness of the shoulders and projection of the scapula are increased by the forward motion of the baby's arms; and if heavy substances are given it to play with, their weight, at the end of these levers, adds to the injury, while the chest being pressed against the transverse bar is driven inwards, with a force proportioned to the infant's exertions; so that the more active and energetic the child, the greater is the injury done. All this
