mistake to put the knee
in splints to prevent bending. What is wanted is to encourage bending
as far as that can be done without much pain, so that the joint may not
permanently stiffen. Even where, by the use of splints, permanent
stiffness seems to have been brought on, the warm-water treatment
recommended above will bring about a loosening and softening of the
joint, which will permit first of a slight bending, and then, with
gentle encouragement, a complete flexibility. The _complete_
restoration of the limb should be the object kept in view. No case of a
stiffened joint, although it may be free from pain and disease, can be
regarded as satisfactory, and hence treatment should be persevered in
until all stiffness is gone. Common sense will direct as to hot and
cold applications, when to apply each, and how long to continue either;
the patient's comfortable feeling being the very best guide. We are
glad to know of very many apparently hopeless limbs saved by our
treatment, even where it has been imperfectly carried out.

Lacing, Tight.--This produces such serious deformity, and in many ways
so interferes with the health of women, that we are constrained to
write upon the subject. We find in cases which come before us that
lacing, both of the feet and the waist, as practised by our women, has
caused disease, and prevents our curing it. To begin with the lacing of
boots. There is a certain form and size of foot which are supposed to
be graceful. To obtain this, boots unsuitable in shape, and far too
small in size, are used, and tightly laced down upon the foot and
ankle, preventing circulation of the blood in these important parts.
This causes corns and misshapen toes and nails; but its bad effects are
also felt throughout all the body. We have pointed out in other
articles the great curative power of bathing or fomenting the feet. The
tight lacing of boots produces exactly the opposite effect. It is as
powerful to injure as the other to cure. Cold feet are the cause of
many most serious troubles. To keep tight-booted feet warm is almost
impossible. True neatness abhors all such mistaken treatment of the
feet. Moreover, no supposed good shape, in body or feet, can ever
produce the impression of beauty which good health never fails to give,
so that the tightly-booted high-heeled girl or woman defeats her own
object.

A yet more serious evil is the wearing of corsets. From this comes very
much of the ill-health from