Then he is requested to stand on one foot, being permitted
just to touch a chair-back or the attendant's hand to give confidence.
This is practised until he can keep his erect station for a few seconds
without difficulty. This point of improvement may be reached in three
days or a week or may take a fortnight. Women, as I have before
observed, although rarely in America the victims of tabes, when they do
have it have far less disturbance of balance than men, and this is to be
attributed to their life-long habit of walking without seeing their
feet. I have found in the few cases of ataxia in women that I have seen
that they benefited much more quickly by these balance instructions than
did men, though their other symptoms were in no way different.
Continuing every day the practice of all the previous lessons, movements
are rapidly added as soon as station is better. A brief list of them
follows. When the exercises grow so numerous as to take overmuch time,
the simpler early ones may be omitted.
When the learner is able to stand on one foot, let him slowly raise the
other and put it on a marked spot on the edge of a chair.
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