Dr.F.May Dickinson Berry, Medical Examiner to the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, found (_British Medical Journal_, May 28, 1904) among over 1,500 girls, who represent the flower of the schools, since they had obtained scholarships enabling them to proceed to higher grade schools, that 22 per cent, presented some degree, not always pronounced, of lateral curvature of the spine, though such cases were very rare among the boys.

In the same way among a very similar class of select girls at the Chicago Normal School, Miss Lura Sanborn (_Doctors' Magazine_, Dec., 1900) found 17 per cent, with spinal curvature, in some cases of a very pronounced degree.

There is no reason why a girl should not have as straight a back as a boy, and the cause can only lie in the defective muscular development which was found in most of the cases, sometimes accompanied by anaemia.

Here and there nowadays, among the better social classes, there is ample provision for the development of muscular power in girls, but in any generalized way there is no adequate opportunity for such exercise, and among the working class, above all, in the section of it which touches the lower middle class, although their lives are destined to be filled with a constant strain on the neuro-muscular system from work at home or in shops, etc., there is usually a minimum of healthy exercise and physical development.

Dr.W.A.B.