Fig. 100. A correct outline of the Venus de Medici, the beau ideal of female symmetry.
Fig. 101. An outline of a well-corseted modern beauty.
One has an artificial, insect waist; the other, a natural waist. One has sloping shoulders, while the shoulders of the other are comparatively elevated, square, and angular. The proportion of the corseted female below the waist, is also a departure from the symmetry of nature.
Observations. 1st. The Chinese, by compressing the feet of female children, prevent their growth; so that the foot of a 241 Chinese belle is not larger than the foot of an American girl of five years.
What does fig. 100 represent? Fig. 101? Give observation 1st.
2d. The American women compress their chests, to prevent their growth; so that the chest of an American belle is not larger than the chest of a Chinese girl of five years. Which country, in this respect, exhibits the greater intelligence?
3d. The chest can be deformed by making the linings of the waists of the dresses tight, as well as by corsets. Tight vests, upon the same principle, are also injurious.
520. In children, who have never worn close garments, the circumference of the chest is generally about equal to that of the body at the hips; and similar proportions would exist through life, if there were no improper pressure of the clothing. This is true of the laboring women of the Emerald Isle, and other countries of Europe, and in the Indian female, whose blanket allows the free expansion of the chest. The symmetrical statues of ancient sculptors bear little resemblance to the “beau ideal” of American notions of elegant form. This perverted taste is in opposition to the laws of nature. The design of the human chest is not simply to connect the upper and lower portions of the body, like some insects, but to form a case for the protection of the vital organs.
521. Individuals may have small chests from birth. This, to the particular individual, is natural; yet it is adverse to the great and general law of Nature relative to the size of the human chest. Like produces like, is a general law of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. No fact is better established, than that which proves the hereditary transmission 242 from parents to children of a constitutional liability to disease and the same may be said in regard to their conformations. If the mother has a small, taper waist, either hereditary or acquired, this form may be impressed on her offspring;—thus illustrating the truthfulness of scripture, “that the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”