Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

In early youth the heart lies higher than in the adult. By narrowing the intercostal spaces, the heart is retained, as it were, in its youthful position; in the adult female the heart is found to lie higher than in the male, and the contraction of the space in which the heart has to play is one of the causes of woman’s fainting, and it is also a cause of organic disease of the heart.

At puberty, when the girl is rapidly increasing in stature, and her menses begin to be a drain on the system, relentless custom adds the compression of the corset and long skirts, suspended from tightly drawn bands around the waist.

The spinal column at this age lengthens rapidly, and it should carry upward all the viscera attached to it; but, owing to the weight of the clothing and the compression at the waist, this normal process cannot take place; instead, there is stretching of the ligaments, and the viscera are prevented from rising and hang at a level much below the normal.

A girl of this class is apt to be slender, with undersized hips, and has a characteristic configuration of the anterior surface of the body, a hollowing out of the region over the stomach, and a very great protrusion of the abdomen.

The uterus remains undeveloped and in an infantile state until near the approach of puberty, when it develops rapidly, and continues to increase in size until the normal size is attained—about twenty years of age. By the putting on of corsets the free mobility of the uterus and its appendages and their normal development are interfered with.

This period of growth and development is one of the greatest importance for the future health of the woman, both physically and mentally, and the most intelligent care should be given the girl at this impressionable age. By putting corsets on their daughters at this time, mothers are doing them a very great wrong, which can never be entirely atoned for. The corset prevents growth, development, and the participation in those exercises which make for physical vigor and good health. To the well-developed girl corsets are as much of a superfluity as crutches would be, and nothing but the prevailing style of dress causes girls to put them on.

It has been suggested that the wearing of any kind of corsets before thirty years of age should be a penal offense; and in case of a minor, the parents should be fined from one hundred to one thousand dollars.

As regards the wearing of corsets after the age of thirty, opinion is divided into three classes—first, those who utterly condemn their use; second, those who approve of it; and third, those who tolerate the wearing of corsets, but only under the condition that they shall cause absolutely no constriction.

What Style of Corset is the Least Injurious?—From the nature of the structure of the chest and abdomen and the functions of respiration, circulation, digestion, and the pelvic organs, the wearing of any style of corset must be more or less detrimental to the health and vigor of woman, and a perfectly developed woman, in perfect health, does not need a corset if she lives under normal conditions of dress and life; but in our present state of civilization, with the present style of dress, and with the very imperfect muscular development, women in and past the prime of life may wear hygienic corsets without any very great amount of injury.

The type of feminine beauty which approaches most nearly the ideal is that of harmony of proportions and modulations of lines. The waist proportions of the Venus de Milo is 47.7 per cent., while that of the Grecian man is 46.4 per cent. In proportion to her height the hips of the modern woman exceed the girth of those of a man by about four inches, and a woman of the same height as a man exceeds in hip girth by six inches. If the muscles which pass from the thorax to the pelvis were properly developed, the artistic proportions would be preserved, and the waist of the woman would be proportionately larger than those of a man.