ase I
thought this of service, and recommend the further trial of it.

In the tendency to curvature of the spine, whatever strengthens the general
constitution is of service; as the use of the cold bath in the summer
months. This however requires some restriction both in respect to the
degree of coldness of the bath, the time of continuing in it, and the
season of the year. Common springs, which are of forty-eight degrees of
heat, are too cold for tender constitutions, whether of children or adults,
and frequently do them great and irreparable injury. The coldness of river
water in the summer months, which is about sixty-eight degrees, or that of
Matlock, which is about sixty-eight, or of Buxton, which is eighty-two, are
much to be preferred. The time of continuing in the bath should be but a
minute or two, or not so long as to occasion a trembling of the limbs from
cold. In respect to the season of the year, delicate children should
certainly only bathe in the summer months; as the going frequently into the
cold air in winter will answer all the purposes of the cold bath.

17. _Claudicatio coxaria._ Lameness of the hip. A nodding of the thigh-bone
is said to be produced in feeble children by the softness of the neck or
upper part of that bone beneath the cartilage; which is naturally bent, and
in this disease bends more downwards, or nods, by the pressure of the body;
and thus renders one leg apparently shorter than the other. In other cases
the end of the bone is protruded out of its socket, by inflammation or
enlargement of the cartilages or ligaments of the joint, so that it rests
on some part of the edge of the acetabulum, which in time becomes filled
up. When the legs are straight, as in standing erect, there is no
verticillary motion in the knee-joint; all the motion then in turning out
the toes further than nature designed, must be obtained by straining in
some degree this head of the thigh-bone, or the acetabulum, or cavity, in
which it moves. This has induced me to believe, that this misfortune of the
nodding of the head by the bone, or partial dislocation of it, by which one
leg becomes shorter than the other, is sometimes occasioned by making very
young children stand in what are called stocks; that is with their heels
together, and their toes quite out. Whence the socket of the thigh-bone
becomes inflamed and painful, or the neck of the bone is bent downward and
outwards.

In this case there is no expectat