Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

The direct pressure of the corset upon the side walls of the chest forces the ribs in upon the abdominal contents; the liver suffers most from this, and not only does the liver sometimes actually show furrows upon its surface from the pressure of the ribs, but, in the postmortem room of the great Vienna Hospital deep grooves upon the liver were repeatedly found with great distorsions of the body caused by the corsets, and, in a few instances, the left lobe of the liver was found to be nearly separated from the right.

Fig. 16.—Relation of bony thorax to lungs, heart, liver, and stomach, with artificial outline produced by corsets (after Gray).

By the constriction of the waist, the liver and all the abdominal contents are pushed downward below their normal position, and their functions are greatly interfered with. The effects of this pressure upon the stomach are most disastrous, and cause a host of digestive and nervous troubles. There is very frequently a prolapsus of the kidneys; the right one is more frequently prolapsed than the left, owing to the relation of the right kidney to the liver.

In a study of 50 cases Dr. Gallant found that in 90 per cent. the stomach was pushed down below its normal level, and in 80 per cent. there was prolapsus of the right kidney.

The constriction of the waist crowds the small intestines, with the accompanying mesentery and colon, into the pelvis; if the rectum is loaded with feces and the bladder empty, there follows an anterior displacement of the uterus; if, on the other hand, the rectum is empty and the bladder distended, there is a backward displacement of the uterus. In very many of these cases the compression and constriction are great enough to interfere with and retard the peristaltic action of the intestines, and constipation is produced.

Gynecologists are unanimous in the opinion that tight lacing is a most serious impediment to the development of the pelvic organs, and is a prominent factor in causing disease of these organs. Tight lacing displaces the uterus downward from two to three inches, and, at the same time, the pelvic floor is bulged downward from two and one-half to three inches and the circulation rendered sluggish.

When there is no interference with the respiratory movements the uterus rises and falls with every breath, and the movements of the uterus promote the circulation of the blood in the pelvis.

A high corset compresses the breasts, and so interferes with their development. The low corsets of the present day support rather than compress the breasts.

The Effects of Corsets on the Muscles.—In the back the corset forms an extended plane from top to bottom, destined to support the posterior part of the thorax and to diminish as much as possible the size and projection of the shoulder-blades. This compression of the muscles of the back leads to their atrophy, and, as it is their function to hold the spinal column erect and to approximate the shoulder-blades to the thorax, when they become atrophied the bony parts become much more salient. Further, the corset, in weakening the muscles of the dorsal region, interferes with the normal forward projection of the chest, and so leads to its flatness.