New Britain Herald Newspaper, April 20, 1927, Page 17

7 OU don’t have to be born with a Y warped, twisted body, or be in Jured in an accident or damaged hy disease, in order to get into the piti able ranks of hopeless cripples. Medical science warns us that an in zly large but surely themselves through their bad habits of holding their bodies while cre. number of people are slowly making cripples of at work or Habitually sitting with one leg thrown over the other, standing and waiking in the now fashionable slouching attitude, at desk work too high or too low, airs not suited to vour height he body many using wd size and not shaped tc support—all and innocent habits can ea proper these other seeming ily cause curvature of the spine and other serious d Such deformitie body’s graceful ormities. not only destroy symmetry but do gri ping the vi forcing them out of harm to the health by cra organs and proper positions. Take, for example, the common habit f sitting wtih one leg thrown over the other. This is an attitude which nearly ceverybody finds comfortable and which seems to give the body needed relaxa tion, But it's all wrong, the posture ex- perts tell us. Such an attitude is to be av say, be plumb, lifts one shoulder high above the other and forces the spine into an un- natural and unhealthful curve to com- pensate for this position of the hips and shoulders. There is always danger that this curvature may become permanent and make the owner of the twisted spine a cripple for life. Then, too, the blood cannot circulate frecly when the legs are pressed tightly together, as they are in this position, and rheumaf , neuritis and weakness of the muscles of the legs and feet may be the result. Sometimes the “walk"” becomes so abnormal that ope is handi- capped in getting about and becomes something of a cripple in the eyes of his fellowmen. Quite as “crippling,” the medica! men point out, is the habit of curling one leg under the other—as so many girls and young women do—or slumping in a chair so that the spine is arched outward and held against the back of fhe chair at a point well up toward the shoulders. Considerable study has been given to the effects of all these supposedly com- fortable positions that people take when sitting down, under the general heading, “Sitter’s Diseases.” An article recently published in a medical journal says that “the greatest enemy of civilized man is the humble and inconspicuous chair.” “Man is not a sitting animal,” the article continued. “Sitting is abnormal to him. Civilized man tries to normalize himself to the posture of sitting by do- ing as much of it as he can, but his structure is not adapted to it. “The muscles under the thigh are too short for it. They have to be too short for sitting to be the right length for moving the upright leg. led, th 1se it throws the hips out of In sitting as Two backs in which the judges at a recent medical convention in Boston found none of the deformities that result from incorrect habits of sitting and standing. The pretty owners of these grace- fully and healthfully normal spinal columns were de- clared entitled to share the capital prize offered for the perfect back Diagrammatic view of a schoolboy’s spine, showing how badly it is twisted out of shape when he works at a desk or table that is too high for him usaally does, they are drawn taut, e them the lower part of the pelvis is brought for- ward and the upper part is thrown back- ward. But on the upper part sits the spine, which is thus thrown completely T its balance, <o that we develop crooked spines.” ' Dr. psco X, Sauchelli, a York physician and a frequent contribu- tor to medical publications, carries this theory a bit further and says that the savage squatting on his haunches shows us the natural and healthful position that man was intended to take when not standing erect or lying down. “Strange as it doctor, “what we look upon as uncomfortable positions are really the most healthful and comfortable after one has acquired the habit of sitting so that his body can function as it should. And what we consider the most com- fortable furniture is actually the worst furniture that could be put into our homes, for chairs and deeply cushioned divans allow our bodies to slump and so twist our bony frame- works and throw our delicate internal organs dangerously out of place. “Hard-surfaced chairs and beds that would support the body instead of let- ting it sink into a downy softness would be much more conducive to well-being and, after we got used to them, would be found much more comfortable than the chairs and beds now used in almost every American home.” Dr. Sauchelli admits the folly of try- ing to induce people to adopt the “squat” of the aborigines in order to dodge the danger of becoming cripples to a lesser or greater degree, but he be- lieves that the design of furnitur: should be changed so that we will not be en- and to ran New soft-bottomed couraged or forced to sit in harmful positions. “Perhaps the best thing we could do,” he sugge vould be to have adjust- able chairs that can be fitted to the individual, for there is a great difference in the proportions of people. But if this is too much to hope for, at least seats in our homes, in theaters, trains and auto- can be built with the bottoms sloping slightly toward the back and the backs set at an angle that will not make it necessary for us to sit unnaturally Dent forward, thus pressing our ribs and our hips into the delicate organs in our abdomens and chests.” Recent investigations show that 70 per cent of the children in the United States and Canada have spinal defects of one kind or another, and that there are at least five million cases of spinal curv- ature among school children and college students in the two countries. mobiles, Most of these cases, the investigators say, are the result of bad habits of sit- ting and standing, that can make crip- ples as surely as dise that leaves the victim deformed, or accidents that vio- lently knock one out of shape. Some of the trouble is laid to school- room seats and desks which are not properly adjusted to the children who use them. Injury suffered in play or in athletic game: in part, responsible for the alarming number of abnorma) n North America’s younger gen- eration. The common custom of carry- ing books on ore hip has brought on and aggravated thousands of cases of spinal curvature. The medical men and physical culture experts have gone very thoroughly into the matter and have tried to find out spines Copyrignt, Sitting With the Legs Crossed, Working at Desk Too High and Other Bad Habits of Holding the Body i | 5,‘ to Cause The photo- graph on the left il- lustrates a way of sit- ting which the posture experts pro- nounce very harmful Equally to be avoided is the com- mon habit of sitting with the legs tucked under one, “tailor fashion” Silhouettes from life showing the ugly deformities which improper habits of sitting. and standing produce in the human body all the causes of twisted backbon They point out that many cases of curvature begin the moment a child comes into the world, because too much pull is exerted on one side of the new- born infant. Fond parents often un- wittingly make cripples of their children . by Johuon Features, inc. Which \ Medical Science Warns Us Are Liable Serious Deformity and Injure the Health by tossing them in the air and catching them and by letting tions which easily twist tender, plastic bones out of adjustment. The common practice of pulling chil- dren along by one hand and y them up steps and into street cars is the cause of a great many twisted bodies that often can never be put straight again. If you let a very young child take the position that is natural and instinctive for him, he will inva his “tummy.” tors n sleep in posi- ¢ get over on This position, the doc- , is both right and con- growth and the child position rather ¢il paren ducive to he should be kept in than flat on his ba Numerous cases of spinal curvature could be prevented at the beginning if mothers and nursemaids would let voungsters teach them the proper way to lay them in cribs, carriages or on blankets on the floor. Dr. Sauchelli condemns shoes as one of the most of body high-heeled ymmon causes twisting that may often does, make one something of a eripple. “When vou put R floor,” say and on a shoe that props inches off the ou are playing two or three he doctor, the very deuce with your backbone, be- cause if the body were held in line the head would be thrown six inches for- ward of its normal position “But the body must find its own cen- ter of gravity to stand by itself, and the spine is unduly curved in four places to offset the raising of the heel. no particular discomfort in vourself to ‘fashionable’ shoes, but after 1 time the muscles about the unr curves in the spine become set curvature is well on its way.” It has been his experience that oc- cupation has a great deal to do with this matter of self-made cripples. He has found, as an example, that most There is adjusting ral and Avoid sitting like this if you would keep your spine from being twisted permanently out of shape. The photograph above shows how the throwing of one knee over the other lowers one shoulder, and the diagram on the left shows the crippling and unhealthful curva- ture produced in this young wom- an's spine when she sits in thi attitude stenographers are troubled with eye- strain and backache because they so often work at desks that are too high or too low, and sit in chairs that are not suited to a natural posture. Dentists and barbers are, almost in- variably, ridden by stomach trouble, and Dr. Sauchelli says the cause is very easy to trace. These men stand at their work and are continually bending over their patrons. This day-in-and-day-out twist- ing of the spine throws the vertebrae out of line and squeezes some of them to- gether so that delicate nerves controling the process of digestion are pinched and cannot do their work. Clerical workers who sit on high stools to bend over account books are almost always round-shouldered, and in them the curvature of the spine tends to make them very nervous. Taxi drivers and chauffeurs as easy as their work seems, are a sick lot, ac- cording to Dr. Sauchelli, because they slump in their seats and because the vibration of the motor and the bumps of the road give their delicate nerve centers more of a shaking than nature intended them to get. The chorus girl is often nervous, trung and temperamental, not be- ulges in the wild night life s of the stage are supposed to particular weakness for, but be- > of the slouching, sliding walk she to assume in her work. This throws vody forward at the hips and forces organs in the abdomen very much out of posit The result is ill-bealth, A knowledge of the proper way to sit and stand--and a constant application f this knowledge—can prevent one from falling into crippling habits and correct slig wists already started. It is e doctors admit, that the relaxation of the body in sleep and the freqe changes in position that we take tend to offset the crippling effect of bone-twisting attitudes, but they do correct them, : ter day with crossed legs, acquire the common habit of standing with most of your weight thrown on one foot, or habitually do one of a hundreq little things that are “comfortable” or “fashionable” and you are in a fair way the ranks of the self-made ays entire to join cripples.