the injurious postures so productive of spinal curvature and short sight are to a very great extent avoided, it is hereby recommended that Upright Penmanship he introduced and generally taught in our elementary and secondary schools."
Every member of the congress that addressed the section spoke in unqualified terms of the claims of Upright Penmanship to every Hygienic Superiority, and nothing could have been more unanimous than the feeling which pervaded the entire meeting on the subject.
To proceed to the aspects of this Hygienic Relation in a particular sense, we would direct attention to the opinions and report of the Specialists appointed by the Vienna Supreme Council to investigate the effect of Vertical Writing upon the attitude of the body and the checking of defects of sight—Professor A. R. v. Reuss (University Vienna) in Ophthalmology and Professor A. Lorenz (University Vienna) in Orthopædics. Report of French Commission—Dr. Javal, Physiologie de l'Ecriture (Pocket Pedagogical Library, No. 2).
A.Professor Reuss' (Ophthalmologist) opinion in respect of Ophthalmology
For years the School Desk question occupied medical men and teachers. Short sight and spinal curvature continually increasing in number and degree called for preventive measures. The question of School Desks was considered as solved by a correct proportioning to the size of the writer, by the introduction of the minimum distance and the application of back-rests. The question proved unsolved. Children sat upon the new benches approved by the faculty just as badly as upon the old…. To the oculist and to the surgeon it was always evident that the position of the head in writing exercises a powerful influence on the attitude of the whole body, and that an abnormity in the pose of the head which is at first apparently unimportant soon brings in its train a very erroneous position of the entire body. It was also found that in reading we always turn the head so that the base-line of the eyes (that is the line connecting the axes of the two eyes) if prolonged to meet the surface of the page corresponds
