File:Annual report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts (1872) (14582535039).jpg

Identifier: annualreportofst7273mass (find matches)
Title: Annual report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts
Year: 1869 (1860s)
Authors: Massachusetts. State Board of Health
Subjects: Public health
Publisher: Boston : Wright & Potter
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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is taken in the making of small seats. In our schools theyare but little better than a smooth board, and support only a very smallsurface (over the tuberosity of the ischium*) on either side and an inch or twoof the thigh. This small surface soon grows painful, and then the childrenfall into all sorts of shapes to relieve the pressure over so small a surface.I then noted some of the common attitudes of the children after they bad beenin their seats for half an hour or more, and had a measure taken of their legsunder tbe knee (which was done by an instrument constructed for the pur-pose, so that the whole school could be measured as fast as the figxires couldwell be made), and this compared with the height of the chair. Now, inorder to prove tbe effect upon the muscles, and also to show the curvature of * Haunch bone.51 402 STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. (Jan. (Outlines on reduced scale from four of the photographs mentioned on oppositepage. The two on the right show the desirable positions.)
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1874.) STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 403 spine, a boy of twelve years old, well developed, was selected and photo-graphed, without clothing, in several of these attitudes, thus showing everyshade of pressure, and the effects upon the muscles,—not those under pressure,but more particularly those of the cavities, as the abdomen and thorax, andthe various curvatures of the spine. A well-arranged skeleton was alsophotographed, and, to our surprise, the same positions gave the same curva-tures as in the boy. I then hail the same positions photographed in a chair of a different seatand back, and we obtained quite a different result. And we are now puttingthem into a new primary school, with the hope of giving the school a morecomfortable seat and a more uniform attitude, as it admits and insures apressure over a surface at least four or six times as large as can be obtainedin a common seat; and a movable desk to rest the book while studying. Ishould have said that the relative height of the chai

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