n a neck-swing was directed,
and she took the bark, madder, and bone-ashes; and she continues to amend
both in her shape and health.

Delicate young ladies are very liable to become awry at many boarding
schools. This is occasioned principally by their being obliged too long to
preserve an erect attitude, by sitting on forms many hours together. To
prevent this the school-seats should have either backs, on which they may
occasionally rest themselves; or desks before them, on which they may
occasionally lean. This is a thing of greater consequence than may appear
to those, who have not attended to it.

When the least tendency to become awry is observed, they should be advised
to lie down on a bed or sofa for an hour in the middle of the day for many
months; which generally prevents the increase of this deformity by taking
off for a time the pressure on the spine of the back, and it at the same
time tends to make them grow taller. Young persons, when nicely measured,
are found to be half an inch higher in a morning than at night; as is well
known to those, who inlist very young men for soldiers. This is owing to
the cartilages between the bones of the back becoming compressed by the
weight of the head and shoulders on them during the day. It is the same
pressure which produces curvatures and distortions of the spine in growing
children, where the bones are softer than usual; and which may thus be
relieved by an horizontal posture for an hour in the middle of the day, or
by being frequently allowed to lean on a chair, or to play on the ground on
a carpet.

Young ladies should also be directed, where two sleep in a bed, to change
every night, or every week, their sides of the bed; which will prevent
their tendency to sleep always on the same side; which is not only liable
to produce crookedness, but also to occasion diseases by the internal parts
being so long kept in uniform contact as to grow together. For the same
reason they should not be allowed to sit always on the same side of the
fire or window, because they will then be inclined too frequently to bend
themselves to one side.

Another great cause of injury to the shape of young ladies is from the
pressure of stays, or other tight bandages, which at the same time cause
other diseases by changing the form or situation of the internal parts. If
a hard part of the stays, even a knot of the thread, with which they are
sewed together, is pressed hard upon one side more