ation will enable the Recruiting officer or Surgeon to detect any impediment to the free use of the limbs and joints of the Recruit, as well as to discover some other defects that may demand his rejection.

To enable the Inspecting officers to carry out the plan more readily, they should carefully instruct the Recruiting Sergeant in the regular mode of performing the various motions required, and the Recruit should be directed by the Sergeant to imitate him in all the motions. The Recruiting officer or Surgeon will then be at liberty to observe the motions of the Recruit both front and rear, while the inspection is progressing.

To this list of motions to be executed should be added the vertical and lateral motions of the lower jaw, and head and extreme flexion of the wrist, hip, knee, and ankle joints.

We We may here observe that we have seen a few instances in which the Recruit could not touch his shoulders with his fingers, and still the most rigid examination could detect no imperfection in any of the joints of that extremity. When any difficulty in touching the shoulders with the fingers is perceived, a more cautious inspection of all the joints of the limb must be instituted, as the probabilities are that some defect exists. The elbow or wrist will generally be found to be the failing joint.

We may again remark, that the order in which the several motions are executed is immaterial, provided they are all gone through with. Our own method is thisAfter the Recruit has gone through with the walking and hopping, and has taken the position of a soldier, while questioning him as to any defect, injury, or disease he may have suffered, we percuss the chest, place the hand over the heart to ascertain the character of its motion, etc. We then feel the surface of the head carefully; then examine the ears, eyes, teeth, nose, throat, and motions of the jaws in succession; then extend the arms above the head, with the backs of the hands together, and in this position examine the rings, chord, and testes; then cause the man to touch his shoulders with his fingers,— we next inspect the elbow and wrist joints, fingers, etc.,

being careful to require the fore-finger to be flexed and extended separately, while the other fingers are kept flexed and the thumbs are adducted across the palms of the hands; then ascertain the presence of the vaccine or variolous cicatrix; then cause the man to touch the floor in front of him with his fingers while the nates are kept elevated, so that the existence of hæmorrhoids, fistula in ano or perineo, etc.. can be observed. Then the man rises and we examine the urinary organs; next the independent motions of the ankle joints; then cause the man to kneel upon each knee separately, and finally to rise on his toes.

It is evident, that while these motions are being performed, the experienced eye has abundant opportunity for observing every point of the man's person front and rear, and will scarcely fail to perceive any deviation from the normal standard in the head, limbs, thorax, abdomen, spine, pelvis, etc.

The chest should be ample.

The limit of what may be considered an ample chest has never been definitely determined. The "vital capacity" of the chest, as Mr. Hutchinson terms it, will depend upon the integrity of the contained viscera. This author thinks that the vital capacity is commensurate with the range of mobility or thoracic movement and that the mobility increases in arithmetical proportion with the height. Our own observations have led us to the conclusion that the mobility is rather inversely as the circumference of the chest, than directly as the height of the person-as if increased mobility were designed to make up for less capacity as indicated by a less diameter; so that the quantity of air consumed does not differ greatly in different men with healthy lungs, whatever may be And their relative stature or circumference of chest. this after all we look upon as the essential condition of healthy respiration. The larger quantity of air that may be forcibly expelled, as shown by the spirometer, we consider as indicative of muscular vigor, rather than of the quantity of oxygen required, or regularly used for vital purposes.

The vital capacity as measured by Hutchinson with

his spirometer gives some curious results. Mr. Hutchinson thinks the circumference and length of the chest have little influence in determining the quantity of air taken in at each inspiration, because the circumference increases with the weight and the length of the chest varies but little in men of different statures. To the latter proposition we accede, to the former we do not. Mr. Hutchinson

measures with a tape around the chest above the nipples. We think this may account for the different results of his measurements and ours. Mr. H. finds the mobility of the chest to average three inches, seldom reaching four. Now by passing a tape around the chest above the nipples, when the arms are extended above the head, (as they ought to be,) the margins of both the latissimus dorsi, and pectoralis major muscles will be included as well as the fatty developments of the breasts themselves; this will give an increased measurement to the parietes of the chest, and when a forced inspiration and expiration are made, the swelling and relaxation of these muscles, will give an apparent mobility greater than the real. We measure the circumference of the chest by passing the tape around it, immediately at the point where the border of the latissimus dorsi springs from the trunk. The tape will then be found to fall, generally, below the nipple. In this way we find the mobility of the chest is usually two and one-half inches, and seldom exceeds three. Once only have we found it four. In this way, it seems to us we may approximate more nearly to the solid contents of the thorax. We think the geometric solid represented by the thorax to be nearer a paraboloid of revolution than any other figure; and if we consider the space occupied by the heart, and the mediastinal spaces to be equal to that part of the cavity contained by the plane of the diaphragm and a horizontal plane passing through the lowest point of the attachment of the diaphragm to the sternum, we shall have a regular figure whose solid contents are easily calculated.

The spirometer of Hutchinson is not readily accessible to the army Surgeon, and would be found both inconvenient and unnecessary in the examination of recruits; the tape measure will answer all practical purposes

Stokes found twenty chests that he measured, to average thirty-five inches, and a maximum chest to measure forty-three inches and one-half. Taking thirtyfive inches for a circumference with a mobility of three inches and the altitude of the figure we have described at seven inches, it will be found that fifty-nine cubic inches have been expelled at one expiration. This we consider to be near the truth. In regular breathing the quantity taken in at each inspiration is much less. Thus Dumas and Coathupe when they inspired sixteen times a minute, found they consumed at each inspiration twenty cubic inches or 266.66 cubic feet in twenty-four hours. From more recent experiments by Dr. Draper, the quantity consumed at each inspiration with the same number of inspirations per minute was found to be thirty-nine cubic inches. The circumferences of the chests of 150 recruits examined by us within a few weeks have varied from 29.5 inches to 38 inches, and their mobility from two to three inches. The mean circumference was 33.97 inches. The height of the men ranged from five feet four and one-half inches to five feet eleven and a half. The least circumference was in the tallest man, and the greatest in a man five feet eight and a quarter inches. Other men of five feet four and one-half and five feet four and three quarter inches have measured 34 and 34.5 inches. The man measuring 29.5, was rejected for evident feebleness of constitution. We should then fix the lowest limit of thoracic circumference, measured as we have indicated, at thirty-one inches, with a mobility of two inches in a man of five feet six inches. A less vital capacity" in our opinion disqualifies the recruit. We have dwelt more upon this point because it is one of great importance. A better judgement can be formed of the physical strength of a recruit from the development of the thorax than from any other single feature. Cruvelhier has well remarked that "In each individual the capacity of the thorax is exactly proportioned to the volume of the lungs; and, as in general, voluminous lungs co-exist with a highly developed muscular apparatus, it follows that the size of the thorax is no equivocal sign of a vigorous constitution."

We have remarked that the figure of the thorax is

nearly a paraboloid. This is of course not rigidly trueno section of it is a regular circle, but it will be found to be flattened in different directions in different places. For our purposes the most important normal flattening is antero-posteriorly. Many variations, however, of the normal configuration are met with; some, compatible with health, others pathological. We will only mention in this place that

When the lateral exceeds the antero-posterior flattening and the sternum is prominent, the chances are that the subject is phthisical and should be rejected.

When there is much curvature of the spine so that the ribs are abnormally approximated on one side, the mobility of the chest will be sensibly affected and the vital capacity seriously diminished. Such men are neither physically nor physiologically fit for soldiers.

The remaining points of Examination being less general in their character will be treated of when we come to speak of the different Organs and Systems which may be the seats of Special Diseases of such a nature as to disqualify a man for the Military service.

We shall conclude this chapter with a few general remarks selected from various authors.

"Reason dictates that none should be admitted to the military service but men endowed with a healthy and vigorous constitution. But the expression "Strong constitution" when applied to a man remarkable only for great muscular development or predominance of the lymphatic system, is sometimes deceptive. In fact, it frequently happens that this athlète with a herculean form presents organic affections which render him unfit for the military service and which an attentive examination alone can discover. We advise therefore that this class of men should be subjected to a more minute inspection. The employment of the stethoscope may then be a valuable assistance when one is expert in the use of this instrument. This observation is particularly applicable to very tall men in whom the thorax is rarely in proportion to the other parts of the body."

In general men of small stature and otherwise well

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