Stoop

“ The results of the fashionable stoop affected by the young women of today and encouraged by the corset which at­tempts to obliterate the hips, will be told by the next decade when those same young women reach maturer years and present another problem to the orthopedic specialist and the gynecologist. ”

“ The size and weight of the bony frame is often too much for the ligaments of the spine to support, and so these people develop a decided stoop in later years The face is long and well formed, the nose well proportioned, dark kindly eyes, with dark chestnut hair, The body is very active, but requires much rest, as the recuperative powers are below the requisite. ”

“ Those who stoop in walking generally look downward. The proper way is to look straight ahead, upon the same level with your eyes, or if you are inclined to stoop, until that tendency is overcome, look rather above than below the level. ”

“ The stooping position especially tells most fatally upon the health; weavers, shoemakers, and cotton-spinners have generally a sallow and sickly appearance, very different from that of those whose occupation does not require them to stoop, or to remain long in a hurtful posture. Their common affections{156} are indigestion and dull headache, with giddiness especially during summer. ”

“ Another thing I would caution you against is not to pore over your books till you are bent almost double—a habit you will never be able to get the better of, and which you will find of serious ill consequence. A stoop in the shoulders sinks a man in public and in private estimation. ”

“ We have already observed that Rushbrook was a fine, tall man; and if there is any class of people who can be transplanted with success from low to high life, it will be those who have served in the army. The stoop is the evidence of a low-bred, vulgar man; the erect bearing equally so that of the gentleman. ”

“ Most of the stoop shoulders and many of the crooked backs that we see are the result of the habitual taking of wrong postures. Children, and adults as well, should form habits of standing and sitting so straight that none of the bones are put under a pressure that may tend to distort them.
After the teeth are lost the bony sockets in which they lie are dissolved away, making the jaws much shallower than formerly, a fact that accounts for the shortening of the distance between chin and nose in aged people. ”

“ Round shoulders is most common among people whose occupation causes them to stoop. Drawing, writing, and a wrong position when at one's desk are among the causes. Exercises which strengthen the back muscles and cause the head to be kept erect are helpful in forming the habit of erect carriage. ”

“ The structure was home-made, with rafters on the outside or inside according to the fancy of the builder; sunshine and storm had stained it grayish brown, and no tint could better harmonize with the background and surroundings. In one corner of the stoop a tin wash-basin stood under a waterspout in the sink; there swung the family towels; the public comb, hanging by its teeth to a nail, had seen much service; a piece of brown soap lay in an abalone shell tacked to the wall ”

“ As weights are carried on the back suspended by a strap across the forehead, the tendency to stoop or grow round-shouldered is counteracted, for the pull of the strap brings the head back, and the strain is taken by the muscles of the neck. ”

“ This is almost as bad as the other extreme, for it is unnatural, and after a few minutes, they gradually return to their former stoop. The natural posture is easy and graceful and can be held longer than any other. ”

“ To cure a habit of stooping whilst sitting, there should be an extra stiff busk, a good deal curved in at the bottom, inserted after the corset is laced on. If the head is persistently stooped also, a woollen ball may be fastened under the chin, having a darning needle fixed in its centre. ”

“ When a child or adult has contracted a habit of stooping, and has become round-shouldered, it can be measurably, and generally, wholly, remedied by moderate and repeated efforts to bring the shoulders back, and the spinal column in an erect 99 position. ”

“ Now it will be found that by reducing the spring at the neck of a coat to nothing, but leaving the five-eighths lap toward the blade, the great majority of stooping forms may be fitted, for it makes the front shoulder shorter, and that is all that a forward leaning neck requires. Stooping persons often throw their shoulders up, and such must be considered a combination of stooping and square shoulders. The lap of from three to five-eighths must always depend upon how the collar is sewed on. ”

“ Let us suppose a young lady who has been in the habit of stooping, suddenly made aware of the injury to her general health occasioned by this practice, going to one of the numerous staymakers with which London abounds, in hopes that she may be able to purchase what will restore her to the erect position. Most of our readers are aware that this will be attempted by a strong steel, whalebone, or wooden busk passed down the front of the corset; that the stays will be strengthened by an immense number of springs and bones, placed without the least regard to the anatomical construction of the body ”

“ Various deformities are induced by defective exercise of particular groups of muscles. Thus drooping shoulders may be caused by shoulder-straps confining the action of the shoulder-muscles in the earlier years of life. Stooping is favoured by sitting in cramped positions in school, and by the use of desks not inclined at the proper angle. ”

“ A person in stooping to look over a deep hole, will bend his trunk forward; the line of direction being altered, he must extend his base to compensate for it, which he does by putting his foot a step forward. A porter stoops forward to prevent his burthen from throwing the line of direction out of the base behind, and a girl does the same thing in carrying a pail of water, by stretching out her opposite arm, for the weight of the pail throws the centre of gravity on one side, and the stretching out of the opposite arm brings it back again, and thus the two are [Pg 52] balanced. ”

“ Pain at the nape of the neck and forehead when stooping; it is a dull, confused pain which he cannot describe. In the day-time the hands become red. Sense of weight over the eyes. His nose is looser than usual. Pain all round the head as from a blow after having remained in the sun for a time. 30. Redness and heat of the ears. ”

“ Doubtless there is much expression in a torso; in many cases a weakly condition is indicated by a stooping attitude, with a lolling over to one side. It is difficult to indicate in precise terms the positions and movements of the spine, and perhaps this is one reason why so little is known about the action of the muscles of the back. With regard to the lower extremities, the gait and manner in walking may be characteristic of brain or cord disease. ”

“ It strengthens the muscles which support the body, and by keeping the body upright the lungs and heart get plenty of room to work, and the inside organs are kept in the proper position for good digestion of food, and so on. A slouching position, on the other hand, depresses all the organs, and prevents them doing their work properly, so that a stooping person is generally weak and often ill. Growing girls are very apt to slouch, and should therefore do all they can to get out of the habit by plenty of physical exercises and drill. ”

“ A feeling of unpleasant stiffness may be complained of on his assuming this manly attitude, and this arises from the muscles of the chest and back being brought more into action, and also to the back part of the intervertebral cartilages having become thickened, from his long habit of stooping. ”

“ LUMBAGO.—This attacks the muscles in the small part of the back. It comes on often with great suddenness, as on stooping or lifting. It may be so severe that the body cannot be moved, and the patient may fall in the street or be unable to rise or turn in bed. In less severe cases the pain "catches" the patient when attempting to straighten up after stooping. Pain in the back is often attributed by the laity to Bright's disease, but is rarely seen in the latter disorder, and is much more often due to rheumatism. ”

“ I took out the rope from under my jacket, and got upon a three-legged stool, and putting the rope first over the beam in the ceiling, then made a slip-knot, and brought it down round my neck, taking good care to have it short enough that it would not choke me, and in this way I stood upon the stool for some considerable time, groaning and struggling, and making every kind of noise that might make her believe that I was choking or strangling; but still Mary sat deliberately smoking her pipe with the utmost coolness, and seemed to take no notice of me or what I was doing. ”

“ In these pleasant wide stoups, the floors of which are generally very nicely boarded and painted, the women of the family sit to sew or knit in warm weather, the children play in them when the sun is too hot, or the weather too wet for them to go out of doors; and the men not unfrequently solace themselves with a pipe. At the back of the house, the stoup serves for larder, store-room, laundry, garden-house, and a vast many other purposes. I have seen joints of frozen meat hanging in the “back stoup” for weeks together, along with frozen fowls, dry salt-fish, and venison. ”

“ Figure 4 shows the section at the gill cover, and third dorsal spine, where the thickness is less; and figure 5, represents a section behind the ventrals, where the thickness is little more than a tithe of the height, and it gradually decreases to the caudal fin. The oblong profile is highest at the third dorsal spine, whence it descends with a slightly convex curve to the mouth, which is low down--the under jaw when extended, being nearly on a line with the belly. The height of the tail between the vertical fins is equal to half the greatest height of the body. ”

“ In the early Sixteenth Century joint stools were used in every room. In the bedrooms they served the purposes of small tables and chairs as well. There are ever so many fine old walnut stools and the lower stools used for bed-steps to be bought in London shops that make a specialty of old English furniture, and reproductions of them may be bought in the better American shops. I often wonder why we do not see more bedside stools. They are so convenient, even though the bed be only moderately high from the floor. Many of mine are only six inches high, about the height of a fat floor cushion. ”

“ Within a few yards, hanging from a branch, were half a dozen wind-dried, tailless corpses, all of stoats which had been so anxious to investigate every possible hole or tunnel that they had blundered into the cunningly prepared trap in a drainpipe. Sooner or later, this particular stoat will probably join them and lose its black-tipped tail; every tail means vermin money. ”

“ Strike the fish on the head repeatedly—but never on the tail—until he is paralysed and then grasp him firmly by the metatarsal fin or, failing that, by the medulla oblongata, but keep your hands away from his mouth. The teeth of the stoot are terribly sharp and pyorrhœa is not unknown in this species.
Having got the fish on board you will need a spell of rest. An hour's battle with a stoot is the most sudorific experience that I know, even more so than my contests with red snappers at Mazatlan, in Mexico, or bat-fish off the coasts of Florida. ”

“ But the feature of the stool was its unusual length, a full six feet, and I one day had to satisfy Alice's curiosity by telling her that this was for the purpose of providing a comfortable seat to anyone who might be turning over for the pianist! The real reason was that the stool was, for all practical purposes, a rack actuated by hidden machinery and fitted with a most ingenious arrangement of straps, the efficacy of which I looked forward to testing on Alice's tender self. ”

“ The stools should be so placed that they can be readily seen from the line of flight, not too high above the water, and the farthest not more than thirty-five yards from the shooter. If too near a bank, they will be confounded with the grass, and be invisible even to the keen eye of the snipe. They should be scattered sufficiently to allow each one to be distinct, and must be headed in different directions, so that some may present their broadsides to every quarter of the heavens. ”

“ A sterilized linen or cotton cap is placed upon his head and pulled down so that the scales or germs of any sort may not fall into the wound. Some surgeons of stout and comfortable habit, who are apt to perspire in the high temperature of an operating-room, will tie a band of gauze around their foreheads, to prevent any unexpected drops of perspiration from falling into the wound; while some purists muffle up the mouth and lower part of the face lightly in a similar comforter. ”

“ Stoats are plentiful. They have their young in burrows, or in holes and crevices among the stones, which are found in quantities in the woods. As any one passes such a heap of stones the young stoats peep from the crevices and cry "yac, yac," like barking, and so betray their presence. ”

“ A complete change is necessary.
I have already spoken of the eating qualities of the stoot, which exceed those of the tope. One is enough to provide sustenance for a small country congregation. Cooked en casserole, or filleted, or grilled and stuffed with Carlsbad plums, it is delicious.
And lastly it lends itself admirably to curing or preserving. Bottled stoot is in its way as nutritious as Guinness's.
FLOWERS' NAMES.
London Pride. ”

“ The waist is particularly over-built, similar to the natural proportions of a stout. The sleeve is a great deal shorter than for the regular stout or the proportionately built person. As the armhole of every stout is to occupy large deepness, the under-arm for this short stout is particularly very short. ”