Your Chest Should Be Flat: The Deep Chest Makes Better Soil for Tuberculosis

and on 20,000 Minneapolis public school children. Besides the 'determination of the thoracic index {i.e., the" ratio of the depth of the chest to its width), the length-width index, the length-depth index and the size of the subcostal angle, the vital capacity was measured. The author refers to the popular and erroneous idea that the healthy chest is 'round and deep and the tuberculous chest flat. By a careful study on a significantlv large number of cases from infancy onwards he has .shown that the opposite is true, namely, the tuberculous chest is round and deep, while the normal chest is flat and wide with an index between 60 to 70 per cent. The infantile chest is round but in healthy individuals it gradually flattens up with age owing to various factors. The chests which do not flatten with age have been shown to be more prone to disease. The thoracic index has been found to be higher in tuberculous chests and still higher in chronic bronchitis and asthma. It has been shown that the thoracic index falls in the case of boys from 72 at the age of 5 years to 67 at the age of 18, while in girls it ranges from 71 at the age of 5 years to 70.4 at the age of IS. Up to the age of puberty there is no very clear difference in the chest contours of the two sexes. After puberty, however, the boys' chests are flatter than those of girl9 of the same age. It decreases steadily in both sexes