Foremost among the conditions absolutely essential for the preservation of health and bodily well-being, is the due performance of the function of the lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, stomach and other important organs. The object of the ribs within which most of these organs are more or less wholly contained is to protect these latter from external pressure, and therefore injury; as well as to allow them unimpeded and unrestricted action. To ensure this freedom of movement for the parts and organs within the ribs, it will be evident that every possible obstacle tending in any degree to compress them, or circumscribe their limits should be especially avoided.
Instead of the avoidance of such dangers, however, what course do the silly votaries and dupes of that most senseless and remorseless of all tyrants—Fashion—pursue? One the very reverse; and which is opposed, not only to personal comfort and common sense, but, since it mars nature’s outlines, to symmetry and our proper canons of the grace of the female figure. By means of corsets, tight stays, and other implements of torture the ribs are pressed inwards to such an extent that all the conditions we have insisted on as essential to health are imperilled, and eventually become overthrown. Now, this mischievous and unnatural pressure exerted on the stomach pushes that organ out of its proper position, and in doing so forces the diaphragm also out of its place; a disturbance which so curtails the space in which the movements of the lungs and the heart are performed, that if the pernicious custom be persevered in these latter organs become seriously and incurably diseased. The liver also shares in the damage inflicted, and frequently becomes incapable of discharging its office. The very much larger number of young women than of young men who die of consumption is undoubtedly referable to the fact that a large proportion of the majority are the victims of tightlacing. Nor is it difficult to understand why this should be, since we know that if the lungs are prevented exercising their full powers of expansion, unnaturally diminished function will set up disease in them, which, if there be a predisposition, will probably be consumption. This cause also, by preventing the blood becoming properly oxygenated, gives
rise to a large class of disorders due to impurity of the vital fluid. Organic disease of the heart is by no means an uncommon contingency if tightlacing be persevered in; for that organ is not allowed room to beat, nor the blood to circulate. One effect of this is seen in frequent fainting fits.
Again, tightlacing not infrequently stops the growth and arrests the development of a young girl’s mammæ, thus seriously incapacitating her from suckling her babe when she becomes a mother. It also indirectly has a very prejudicial effect upon health by preventing its votaries from taking sufficient walking exercise; free bodily movement with accompanying expansion of the lungs becomes impossible with those encased in a vice of unyielding armour, such as constitutes pestilent stays and corsets. Amongst the minor evils wrought by the baleful custom, we may mention indigestion (for the pressure of the stays weakens the stomach, and sets up this troublesome complaint), with its accompaniments of flatulence, heartburn, pain in the chest, &c. Constipation is also another of its attendant ills; so also are bad breath and a red nose.
“I recollect Dr A. Todd Thomson, in his excellent lectures, relating a case he had attended where a young lady appeared to be dying from the evil effects of tightlacing. He cut open her stays and she gradually came to herself. If the worthy doctor had not quickly done what he did, she would soon have been a corpse! Dr Thomson has kindly favoured me with the following interesting particulars of the case for publication:[263]—‘Some years since I was requested to hasten to a house not far from my own to see a lady who had fallen from her chair in a fit whilst eating her dinner. On being ushered to the drawing room of the house where the circumstance had taken place, I saw a lady lying upon a sofa, apparently dead, and several ladies hanging over the couch in great distress. I found little appearance of life except that the temperature of the body was natural; the pulse had ceased to beat, and no respiratory action could be detected. On laying my hand over the region of the heart, I felt that the stays were extremely tightly laced; and conceiving that the suspension of animation arose from that cause, I requested a penknife to be given me, with which I instantly ripped down the stays and gown. In an instant the chest dilated, on the binding matter giving way, which was almost like splitting an overbraced drum; and in a few seconds respiration recommenced and animation returned. In this case the waist was drawn in to a degree that gave a complete hour-glass appearance to the figure, and prevented the descent of the diaphragm, whilst the blood could not circulate, or be renewed in the lungs from the general obstruction of many of the cells and smaller tubes. The quantity of residual air also in the lungs was too small; and this was still diminished by the warmth of some soup, which the lady was eating when she fell from the chair, dilating the gas in her stomach, and consequently pressing that enlarged organ upwards on the lungs. Had I not lived close by, the time necessary to get medical aid from a greater distance might have rendered it unavailable.’ The above narrative by Dr Thomson is valuable not only as illustrating the dangers arising from tightlacing, but also as emphasizing the rationale of its action as stated by ourselves. In the present article we have explained why it is the use of corsets is to be deprecated. We hope we have succeeded in showing how imperatively the abandonment of stays is called for.
[263] Dr Chavasse, ‘Counsels to a Mother.’
Another variety of distortion is that brought about by wearing tight boots and shoes, or boots and shoes constructed upon false principles; for, a boot or shoe may be productive of considerable inconvenience to the wearer, as well as the cause of a certain amount of twisting out of place of the bones of the foot, without necessarily being too small. Amongst the consequences arising from the adoption of tightly fitting or badly constructed boots or shoes may be mentioned the following:—Considerable bodily discomfort, and pain in walking; corns and bunions; growing in of the nails; chronic enlargement of the base of the great toe; caries or ulceration of the bones of the feet; and flat feet. That these are not altogether minor evils may be inferred when it is stated that, in order to obtain relief from the effects of a bunion, partial amputation of the foot has been sometimes found necessary; that the first attacks of gout mostly seize the joint of the ball of the great toe when that joint has become weakened by displacement following the use of faulty boots and shoes; and that a flat foot interferes with the proper performance of walking.
The above figure (No. 1) represents the skeleton of the foot with the bones which form it in their natural position, and in which they are admirably adapted for executing the various movements required of them.
It will be seen to consist of twenty-six bones, fourteen of which constitute the toes; the remaining twelve bones enter into the formation of what are termed the tarsus and metatarsus.