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Music and mental health: the parallels between Victorian asylum treatments and modern social prescribing

<p>Music has a powerful effect on the listener. It is linked to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-021-01483-8">better mental health</a>, and it has been shown to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735617703811?journalCode=poma">alleviate loneliness, pain, anxiety and depression</a>. </p> <p>For this reason, it is increasingly being prescribed by doctors as a form of medicine. This practice – where patients are referred to various activities such as running groups, art classes and choirs – is known as <a href="https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/social-prescribing/">social prescribing</a>.</p> <p>Music-based activities may be prescribed to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13612-016-0048-0">help support</a> patients’ <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08098131.2018.1432676">mental health</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-76240-1_9">combat isolation</a>, encourage <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17482631.2020.1732526">physical activity</a>, and <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2021.693791/full">keep an active brain</a>.</p> <p>While social prescribing is a relatively new practice, the use of music as a therapeutic tool is not. The first widespread use of music as a therapeutic tool can be traced back to the 19th century, where it was used in Victorian asylums to support patients’ treatment. </p> <h2>Music in asylums</h2> <p>Victorian asylums are usually associated with poor sanitation, overcrowding, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/0308018813Z.00000000063">danger</a> and patients held against their will. Indeed, the Victorians had little understanding of mental illness and the brain, which meant <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/030802269005301009">many treatments </a>considered barbaric today were used on patients – including bleeding, leeching, shaving the head and bathing in ice.</p> <p>From the end of the 18th century, however, practitioners moved away from the worst types of physical restraint. A new practice emerged, known as “<a href="https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum#:%7E:text=The%20Victorian%20mental%20asylum%20has,humane%20attitude%20towards%20mental%20healthcare.">moral management</a>”, which placed a focus on using employment, diet, surroundings and recreational activities as <a href="https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1832-1914/daily-life-in-the-asylum/">forms of therapy</a>.</p> <p>When state-run asylums were first introduced in Britain in the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/cure-comfort-and-safe-custody-9780718500948/">early 19th century</a>, music soon became included as a <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-78525-3">form of moral management</a> to distract patients outside of working hours and keep them occupied. Both music and dance were efficient ways of entertaining large numbers of patients. </p> <p>By the middle of the 19th century, almost all the larger asylums in the UK had their own band and would often organise dances, attended by over a hundred patients. Asylums also hosted concerts by travelling performers, from comic sketches to solo singers and amateur choirs. Dances and concerts were usually the only opportunities for patients to meet in a large group, providing important social interaction.</p> <p>Among the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/royal-musical-association-research-chronicle/article/music-as-therapy-for-the-exceptionally-wealthy-at-the-nineteenthcentury-ticehurst-asylum/CBB82DA05DAB7A9D47636BCE2DF9DBB7">smaller asylums</a>, chiefly catering for wealthier patients, patients had more options to create music as part of their treatment. They would often bring instruments with them. And small concerts put on by patients and staff were common.</p> <h2>The benefits of music</h2> <p>Much of the therapeutic value of music was attached to its social function. Accounts suggest that patients benefited from the anticipation of these social engagements and that events were used to reward good behaviour. Music was also used to break up the monotony of asylum life.</p> <p>For example, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-78525-3_11">at one private asylum</a>, Dr Alfred Wood, wrote, "These entertainments involved a great amount of trouble in their preparation and arrangement and, I may add, considerable expense; but they are invaluable as a relief to the monotony of life in an Asylum. The pleasure they afford as well in anticipation as in reality, is ample to compensate for the efforts made to present them …"</p> <p>Dances, in particular, offered exercise and enjoyment, and even patients who were unable to dance enjoyed the music and watching fellow patients. </p> <p>Musical events also carried strict expectations of behaviour. Patients needed a good deal of self-control to participate and behave appropriately. It was this process of conforming to expectations that formed an important part of rehabilitation. William A.F. Browne, one of the most noteworthy asylum doctors of the era, wrote in 1841 about the <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dkxnvx35/items?canvas=91">self-control</a> needed before, during and after amusements. </p> <p>Others suggested that music would help <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vmmq4wv8/items?canvas=216">remind patients of happier days</a> and give them hope and pleasure during their treatment. Browne also cited the “powers of music to soothe, enliven, rouse, or melt”. He suggested that even difficult patients may benefit from music, <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/far6jdph/items?canvas=26">writing</a>: “There is or may be a hidden life within him which may be reached by harmony.”</p> <p>The writer James Webster <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/s1-5/114/197.2">recorded in 1842</a> that: “In many, the effect produced by the music upon their countenances and behaviour was often quite apparent.” Records include many stories of patients seemingly cured by music. </p> <p>Webster cites the example of a young girl, previously “morose” and “stupefied”, who under the influence of music, seemed “pleased” and “cheerful” – appearing “altogether a changed creature”. Browne also wrote in one of his books of the <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/far6jdph/items?canvas=26">miraculous effect</a> music had on one patient who awoke, cured, the morning after listening to a performance of Scottish traditional melodies. </p> <h2>Music as treatment</h2> <p>In the 1890s, many doctors carried out experiments on the relationship between music and mental illness. Herbert Hayes Newington, medical superintendent of one of the era’s most prestigious asylums, used music to diagnose patients and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-mental-science/article/abs/some-mental-aspects-of-music/A87C190163A86070D4445A830E656557">help develop theories</a> on how the brain works. Reverend Frederick Kill Harford, who campaigned to provide music in public hospitals during the early 1890s, believed music could <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/2/1603/667">treat depression</a>, alleviate physical pain and help with sleep. </p> <p>Although music remained in asylums as a form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-life-was-like-in-mental-hospitals-in-the-early-20th-century-119949">therapy</a>, interest in it as a large-scale treatment waned as innovations such as <a href="https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2020.160103">electroconvulsive therapy</a> emerged in the 20th century.</p> <p>For patients in Victorian asylums, therefore, music was an important part of mental health treatment – not only providing an opportunity for creative engagement but also fulfilling a range of social, emotional and intellectual needs. Given what we know now about the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-021-01483-8">benefit of music on mental health</a>, it’s no wonder doctors are making use of it again.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/music-and-mental-health-the-parallels-between-victorian-asylum-treatments-and-modern-social-prescribing-200576" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Music

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5 of the eeriest abandoned hospitals and asylums around the world

<h2>From places of healing to horror</h2> <p>For some people, the allure – even the eeriness – of abandoned places draws them to dilapidated destinations year-round. For others, visiting vacant Victorians and otherwise abandoned mansions, or scrolling through images of abandoned castles, is a yearly tradition that gets them in the Halloween spirit. And when it comes to spooky structures, it doesn’t get much more creepy than abandoned hospitals and asylums.</p> <p>Hospitals are vacated and left to decay for a variety of reasons – maybe a larger location is needed, buildings have been damaged and repairs are too costly, or the disease the hospital was created to treat has been eradicated. Similarly, most of the psychiatric hospitals constructed in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries – previously known as ‘mental asylums’ – no longer exist. Their doors were closed in the second half of the 20th century, following the development of medications used to treat mental illness and the shift away from permanent institutionalisation and toward a community-based model of care.</p> <p>But regardless of why their hallways went dark, there’s something unsettling about these empty medical facilities. Even if you wanted to visit them, most are closed to the public. So we’ve done the next best thing and rounded up photos of some of the most chilling abandoned hospitals and asylums in the world.</p> <h2>Old Mental Hospital</h2> <p><strong>Location: Hong Kong</strong></p> <p>This eerie, now-abandoned hospital in Hong Kong’s Western District, known today as the Old Mental Hospital, has had several lives. Completed in 1892, the L-shaped building was originally constructed as quarters for the medical staff of the Government Civil Hospital. The building’s rusticated granite blocks, wide verandah and decorative pinnacles and parapets belied its next life as a psychiatric ward for the hospital’s female patients, which it was until 1961, when the Castle Peak Hospital opened. For the next 10 years, the Old Mental Hospital was used as a psychiatric outpatient treatment centre, and in 1998, work began to convert it into the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex. Though most of the complex is new, the original granite facade remains, and it was declared a monument in 2015.</p> <h2>District of Columbia General Hospital</h2> <p><strong>Location: Washington, DC, USA</strong></p> <p>The first public health hospital in the US capital – the Washington Infirmary – was founded in 1806 as a place to care for the city’s ‘poor, disabled and infirm persons.’ Because of its role as not only a hospital but also a workhouse and poorhouse, it was renamed the Washington Asylum, and in 1846, it moved to a larger site that would become its permanent home. Over the years, the asylum was used as a smallpox hospital, quarantine station, disinfection plant and crematory. In 1922, the city constructed a new health-care facility, Gallinger Municipal Hospital, which was renamed District of Columbia General Hospital in 1953. Following the hospital’s closure in 2001, the hospital – known as DC General – was used as a shelter for unhoused families until its closure in 2018.</p> <h2>Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum</h2> <p><strong>Location: West Virginia, USA</strong></p> <p>One of the most popular abandoned asylums to visit in the United States – also known as the Weston State Hospital and, ominously, the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane – the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was constructed between 1858 and 1881. It’s often touted as the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in North America and the second-largest in the world, after the Kremlin. But regardless of its ranking, the hospital is enormous, comprising nine acres of floor space under three-and-a-half acres of roof.</p> <p>Like most psychiatric hospitals of the era, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was intended to provide high-quality mental-health care in a state-of-the-art facility. But by the 1950s, it was overcrowded – housing roughly 2400 patients in a building designed to hold 250 – and conditions deteriorated until it closed its doors in 1994. Given that its cavernous halls are now open for tours and paranormal investigations, it’s no surprise that there are plenty of rumours related to the asylum.</p> <h2>North Wales Hospital</h2> <p><strong>Location: Denbigh, Denbighshire, Wales</strong></p> <p>Built between 1844 and 1848, the North Wales Hospital opened as a facility for Welsh-speaking people living with mental illness. Despite three expansions, the hospital was consistently overcrowded, reaching its peak population of more than 1500 patients in 1948. Changes in the treatment of mental illness – especially the use of medication – left patient numbers dwindling, and the hospital announced its closure in 1987.</p> <p>Unfortunately, the North Wales Hospital has been abandoned since it closed in 1995, and years of neglect, vandalism and theft have left it dilapidated. The local government hopes to restore the structures, given that the hospital is considered ‘an exceptionally fine and pioneering example of early Victorian asylum architecture.’ For now, the abandoned buildings and grounds are closed to the public.</p> <h2>Poveglia Island</h2> <p><strong>Location: Poveglia Island, Italy</strong></p> <p>Located in the Venetian Lagoon, Poveglia Island is a quick boat ride from St Mark’s Square. But unlike that crowded tourist spot, it’s eerily empty. Thanks to its dark history, Poveglia has a reputation for being one of the most haunted places in Europe, making it a frequent stop for paranormal investigators. Its ties to illness go back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when the island was used as a quarantine station for ships sailing into the Port of Venice.</p> <p>In 1922, Poveglia’s abandoned hospitals and other structures were converted into an asylum. A nursing home was the final medical facility to open on the island, and in 1968, the last to close. Poveglia has been uninhabited since and is not open to the public. But while many of the rumours and ghost stories associated with the island have been proven false, there are still some <a href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/thought-provoking/10-strange-urban-legends-turned-out-be-true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">true urban legends</a> out there.</p> <p><strong>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/culture/15-of-the-eeriest-abandoned-hospitals-and-asylums-around-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reader's Digest</a>.</strong></p> <p><em>Images: Getty</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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Hidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson – the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals

<p><a rel="noopener" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-147135448/view" target="_blank"><em><strong>See pictures of Catherine Hay Thomson here. </strong></em></a></p> <p>In 1886, a year before American journalist Nellie Bly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/07/28/she-went-undercover-expose-an-insane-asylums-horrors-now-nellie-bly-is-getting-her-due/">feigned insanity</a> to enter an asylum in New York and became a household name, Catherine Hay Thomson arrived at the entrance of Kew Asylum in Melbourne on “a hot grey morning with a lowering sky”.</p> <p>Hay Thomson’s two-part article, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6089302">The Female Side of Kew Asylum</a> for The Argus newspaper revealed the conditions women endured in Melbourne’s public institutions.</p> <p>Her articles were controversial, engaging, empathetic, and most likely the first known by an Australian female undercover journalist.</p> <p><strong>A ‘female vagabond’</strong></p> <p>Hay Thomson was accused of being a spy by Kew Asylum’s supervising doctor. The Bulletin called her “the female vagabond”, a reference to Melbourne’s famed undercover reporter of a decade earlier, Julian Thomas. But she was not after notoriety.</p> <p>Unlike Bly and her ambitious contemporaries who turned to “stunt journalism” to escape the boredom of the women’s pages – one of the few avenues open to women newspaper writers – Hay Thomson was initially a teacher and ran <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A79772">schools</a>with her mother in Melbourne and Ballarat.</p> <p>In <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/207826580?searchTerm=%22Catherine%20Hay%20Thomson%22&amp;searchLimits=exactPhrase=Catherine+Hay+Thomson%7C%7C%7CanyWords%7C%7C%7CnotWords%7C%7C%7CrequestHandler%7C%7C%7CdateFrom%7C%7C%7CdateTo%7C%7C%7Csortby">1876</a>, she became one of the first female students to sit for the matriculation exam at Melbourne University, though women weren’t allowed to study at the university until 1880.</p> <p><strong>Going undercover</strong></p> <p>Hay Thomson’s series for The Argus began in March 1886 with a piece entitled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6087478?searchTerm=%22The%20Inner%20Life%20of%20the%20Melbourne%20Hospital%22&amp;searchLimits=">The Inner Life of the Melbourne Hospital</a>. She secured work as an assistant nurse at Melbourne Hospital (now <a href="https://www.thermh.org.au/about/our-history">The Royal Melbourne Hospital</a>) which was under scrutiny for high running costs and an abnormally high patient death rate.</p> <p>Her articles increased the pressure. She observed that the assistant nurses were untrained, worked largely as cleaners for poor pay in unsanitary conditions, slept in overcrowded dormitories and survived on the same food as the patients, which she described in stomach-turning detail.</p> <p>The hospital linen was dirty, she reported, dinner tins and jugs were washed in the patients’ bathroom where poultices were also made, doctors did not wash their hands between patients.</p> <p>Writing about a young woman caring for her dying friend, a 21-year-old impoverished single mother, Hay Thomson observed them “clinging together through all fortunes” and added that “no man can say that friendship between women is an impossibility”.</p> <p>The Argus editorial called for the setting up of a “ladies’ committee” to oversee the cooking and cleaning. Formal nursing training was introduced in Victoria three years later.</p> <p><strong>Kew Asylum</strong></p> <p>Hay Thomson’s next <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6089302">series</a>, about women’s treatment in the Kew Asylum, was published in March and April 1886.</p> <p>Her articles predate <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Bly_TenDays.pdf">Ten Days in a Madhouse</a> written by Nellie Bly (born <a href="https://www.biography.com/activist/nellie-bly">Elizabeth Cochran</a>) for Joseph Pulitzer’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-York-World">New York World</a>.</p> <p>While working in the asylum for a fortnight, Hay Thomson witnessed overcrowding, understaffing, a lack of training, and a need for woman physicians. Most of all, the reporter saw that many in the asylum suffered from institutionalisation rather than illness.</p> <p>She described “the girl with the lovely hair” who endured chronic ear pain and was believed to be delusional. The writer countered “her pain is most probably real”.</p> <p>Observing another patient, Hay Thomson wrote:</p> <p><em>She requires to be guarded – saved from herself; but at the same time, she requires treatment … I have no hesitation in saying that the kind of treatment she needs is unattainable in Kew Asylum.</em></p> <p>The day before the first asylum article was published, Hay Thomson gave evidence to the final sitting of Victoria’s <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1886No15Pi-clxxii.pdf">Royal Commission on Asylums for the Insane and Inebriate</a>, pre-empting what was to come in The Argus. Among the Commission’s final recommendations was that a new governing board should supervise appointments and training and appoint “lady physicians” for the female wards.</p> <p><strong>Suffer the little children</strong></p> <p>In May 1886, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6095144/276118">An Infant Asylum written “by a Visitor”</a> was published. The institution was a place where mothers – unwed and impoverished - could reside until their babies were weaned and later adopted out.</p> <p>Hay Thomson reserved her harshest criticism for the absent fathers:</p> <p><em>These women … have to bear the burden unaided, all the weight of shame, remorse, and toil, [while] the other partner in the sin goes scot free.</em></p> <p>For another article, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6099966?searchTerm=%22Among%20the%20Blind%3A%20Victorian%20Asylum%20and%20School%22&amp;searchLimits=">Among the Blind: Victorian Asylum and School</a>, she worked as an assistant needlewoman and called for talented music students at the school to be allowed to sit exams.</p> <p>In <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/254464232?searchTerm=%22A%20Penitent%E2%80%99s%20Life%20in%20the%20Magdalen%20Asylum%22&amp;searchLimits=">A Penitent’s Life in the Magdalen Asylum</a>, Hay Thomson supported nuns’ efforts to help women at the Abbotsford Convent, most of whom were not residents because they were “fallen”, she explained, but for reasons including alcoholism, old age and destitution.</p> <p><strong>Suffrage and leadership</strong></p> <p>Hay Thomson helped found the <a href="https://www.australsalon.org/130th-anniversary-celebration-1">Austral Salon of Women, Literature and the Arts</a>in January 1890 and <a href="https://ncwvic.org.au/about-us.html#est">the National Council of Women of Victoria</a>. Both organisations are still celebrating and campaigning for women.</p> <p>Throughout, she continued writing, becoming <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_Talk_(magazine)">Table Talk</a> magazine’s music and social critic.</p> <p>In 1899 she became editor of The Sun: An Australian Journal for the Home and Society, which she bought with Evelyn Gough. Hay Thomson also gave a series of lectures titled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145847122?searchTerm=%22catherine%20hay%20thomson%22%20and%20%22women%20in%20politics%22&amp;searchLimits=">Women in Politics</a>.</p> <p>A Melbourne hotel maintains that Hay Thomson’s private residence was secretly on the fourth floor of Collins Street’s <a href="https://www.melbourne.intercontinental.com/catherine-hay-thomson">Rialto building</a> around this time.</p> <p><strong>Home and back</strong></p> <p>After selling The Sun, Hay Thomson returned to her birth city, Glasgow, Scotland, and to a precarious freelance career for English magazines such as <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=cassellsmag">Cassell’s</a>.</p> <p>Despite her own declining fortunes, she brought attention to writer and friend <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/carmichael-grace-elizabeth-jennings-5507">Grace Jennings Carmichael</a>’s three young sons, who had been stranded in a Northampton poorhouse for six years following their mother’s death from pneumonia. After Hay Thomson’s article in The Argus, the Victorian government granted them free passage home.</p> <p>Hay Thomson eschewed the conformity of marriage but <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65330270?searchTerm=&amp;searchLimits=l-publictag=Mrs+T+F+Legge+%28nee+Hay+Thomson%29">tied the knot</a> back in Melbourne in 1918, aged 72. The wedding at the Women Writer’s Club to Thomas Floyd Legge, culminated “a romance of forty years ago”. <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140219851">Mrs Legge</a>, as she became, died in Cheltenham in 1928, only nine years later.</p> <p><em>Written by Kerrie Davies and Willa McDonald. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-catherine-hay-thomson-the-australian-undercover-journalist-who-went-inside-asylums-and-hospitals-129352">The Conversation.</a></em></p>

Art

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Fergie on Princess Eugenie's battle with scoliosis: "She would have been put in an asylum and locked up"

<p>Princess Eugenie, who was born with scoliosis, would have been “put in an asylum and locked up” if she was born in a different country, according to her mother the Duchess of York.</p> <p>Sarah Ferguson, 59, attended the 10th anniversary party of her charity Street Child where she opened up about her youngest daughter’s spinal condition.</p> <p>Eugenie, 28, was forced to undergo an invasive surgery at the age of 12 in order to straighten her curved spine. The young royal famously showed off her large scar last month at her wedding as she chose to wear a backless dress.</p> <p>Speaking to guests at Kensington Palace, Fergie said: “I was never more proud to see my tall, beautiful, upstanding daughter full of courage.</p> <p>“She had scoliosis. In other countries in the world she would be put in an asylum and locked up.”</p> <p>She went on to praise her son-in-law Jack Brooksbank for “trying to tame the lion, which is my daughter”, as reported by <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.hellomagazine.com/" target="_blank"><em>Hello!</em></a> magazine.</p> <p>The operation saw Eugenie grow two inches taller and in 2002, 12-inch metal rods were inserted into her back at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in north London.</p> <p>Eugenie took to Instagram to share photos of her X-ray to help raise awareness for International Scoliosis Day. She is currently working with the organisation to help build a new ward for a hospital in Stanmore, north London.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkp5BlUgEAT/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkp5BlUgEAT/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" target="_blank">Today is International Scoliosis Awareness Day and I’m very proud to share my X Rays for the very first time. I also want to honour the incredible staff at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital who work tirelessly to save lives and make people better. They made me better and I am delighted to be their patron of the Redevelopment Appeal. To hear more of my story visit http://www.rnohcharity.org/the-appeal/princess-eugenie-s-story @the.rnoh.charity #TheRNOHCharity #RedevelopmentAppeal #RNOH #NHS</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/princesseugenie/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" target="_blank"> Princess Eugenie</a> (@princesseugenie) on Jun 30, 2018 at 8:53am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p>Metal rods are inserted to help lengthen the spine as the child grows, and once they have reached adulthood, the rods are then removed.</p> <p>Speaking to <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday/index.html" target="_blank"><em>Mail on Sunday</em></a><em>,</em> Fergie said: “We thought it was a small curvature but it was mammoth.</p> <p>“Her bones had oscillated to such a degree that by the time she reached 18 she would have been a hunchback. It was horrendous.</p> <p>“My little girl was in that operating theatre for seven hours, but she is straight and she will stay straight.”</p>

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