weight, and the vast number of advertisements of quack and
proprietary remedies against obesity indicate how wide-spread the
tendency must be.

Among women somewhat younger, as indeed among men, the American
observer whose recollection takes him back twenty-five years must
note a more hopeful change, a very decided average increase of
stature, not merely in height but in general development. This
change is to be seen throughout the whole country, and must be
taken first as a sign of improved conditions of food and manner of
life, and next, if not more largely, of the new interest and
partnership of girls in the wholesome activities of field and wood.




CHAPTER III.

ON THE SELECTION OF CASES FOR TREATMENT.


The remarks of the last chapter have, of course, wide and general
application in disease, and naturally lead up to what I have to say as
to the employment of the systematic treatment to describe which is my
chief desire. Its use, as a whole, is limited to certain groups of
cases. In some of the worst of them nothing else has succeeded hitherto,
or at least as frequently. In others the need for its application must
depend on convenience and the fact that all other and readier means have
failed. It is, of course, difficult to state now all the groups of
diseases in which it may be of value, for already physicians have begun