We have many opportunities of observing the incorrectness of the principle on which all similar plans for the cure of a stoop have been founded. For instance, porters who carry burthens on the back, by the assistance of a band round the forehead, always stoop; while those who carry baskets before them suspended by a band round the back of the neck, are peculiarly erect. But the most remarkable example of the effect of the head being pulled back by a weight hung behind, is the condition of the women who carry salt in the streets of Edinburgh, for they may be recognised as much by their miserable Sardonic grin, which is caused by the constant excitement of the platysma myoides muscle, as by their stoop.
Very annoying and even distressing consequences may ensue from any system of treatment where a constant resistance to the muscles of the fore-part of the neck is kept up. A gentleman had for many years worn one of the collars invented by Mr. Chesher; after some time, the muscles of the back became so weak, as to be incapable of supporting the column, while those on the fore-part of the neck were so disproportionately increased in strength, by the constant resistance opposed to them by the strap passing from the suspending rod under the chin, that whenever the strap was loosened, the chin was forcibly drawn towards the chest. As the muscles of the back part of the neck did not offer any counteracting resistance, the [p240] windpipe was now pressed down, or almost doubled itself. As soon as this took place (and it was almost immediate on the attempt to sit up without the collar,) the patient was seized with such a sense of suffocation, as to be obliged to throw himself on his back. As he was able to breathe with ease as he lay on his back, his advisers were led to believe that it was the weight of the head which pressed down the windpipe. To counteract this pressure, various contrivances had been proposed to support the head. Indeed, the patient himself was so convinced, from what he had heard, that it was the weight of the head which pressed down the windpipe, and so alarmed had he become from the certainty of having a fit of suffocation when the head was left unsupported, that there was much difficulty in persuading him to believe that if the head could be made _heavier_, the sense of suffocation would be relieved. He was at length induced, although with great dread of the consequence, to allow about fourteen pounds of shot to be placed on the top of his head. He was very much alarmed, but it was highly gratifying to witness his surprise and pleasure in finding that, instead of his head being weighed down, he could support it, and could breathe with ease while in the upright posture. The following is the principle on which this plan was proposed:—the muscles of the back part of the neck had been brought into such a state, that their ordinary stimulus was not sufficient to excite them to the action necessary to counteract the efforts of those on the fore-part of the neck, which had been evidently increased in strength. The placing a weight on a certain spot on the head formed an additional stimulus to the muscles of the back part of the neck; a fact which the reader may prove by an experiment on himself.