If you keep the air from the skin, your system feels smothered. Does not every one know how refreshing it is, on a hot, sultry day, to allow the atmosphere to circulate freely about the surface?
Every lady, however genteel, however pinched up in her fashionableness she may choose to be when she goes out before the world, takes off her clothing from instinct as soon as she is alone by herself again.
Even in cold weather, smothering the skin is productive of uncomfortable sensations; and all persons may observe, that in lying down to sleep by day, with the usual amount of clothing on, they become feverished, unrefreshed, and awake with at least a general lassitude, and very likely with a severe headache, or other uncomfortable feelings of the head. On the other hand, if there is necessity for deep during the day, and the individual lies down with suitable clothing, and yet sufficiently covered to remain comfortable, a refreshing sleep is obtained.
Ladies especially who, from pregnancy or other reasons, have need of their forenoon “naps,” will do well to remember this advice. So also infants should always be undressed when they are allowed to go to sleep. Thus much for the skin as a breathing organ.
4. But perhaps the worst of all physical injuries produced by clothing, is that exerted upon the chest. We read that in the blood of the animal is the life thereof. In the stomach the digestible portions of the crude materials of food are formed into chyme. The chymous mass passes then onward through the pylorus into the duodenum, or second stomach. Here the chyle is formed, which is a step nearer blood than chyme. The lacteals suck up this milk-like fluid called chyle, and carry it into the portal circulation, to commingle with the blood. The blood, in this crude state, is sent to the liver, where a still further purifying process goes on. After this the venous blood passes to the heart, from whence it is sent to the lungs, there to become arterialized, or rendered in its purest state. Thence it passes back again to the left side of the heart, from which it is sent to all parts of the system, to afford life, growth, energy, and strength.
You will now perceive that this blood-restoring process, which, by the wonderful mechanism of nature, goes on in the lungs, is a very important one to the health. Here, in myriads of air-cells contained in the lungs, the surface of which amounts to at least as many superficial inches as the entire external skin, it is purified, and rendered fit for the purposes of life.
We see, too, that when the system is left free to perform its own normal functions, the chest expands freely at every inspiration of air we breathe; and in proportion as this expansion of the chest is full and free, will be the amount of air inspired, and, as a consequence, the amount of oxygen, or the blood-purifying principle, will be proportionately augmented. On the other hand, if, by compression of the chest, the full, free inspiration of air is hindered, less oxygen will be received into the system, and, consequently, the blood will become less pure.
A woman who laces herself tightly about the waist cannot be supposed to breathe hardly more than one half the amount of air she should do. How, then, in the name of common sense, can she expect to enjoy health? Every organ of the human system must be allowed its free exercise, or a deterioration of the general health must be the inevitable result. We might as well expect to have good health with only half the amount of food we should have, as with half the amount of the air we should breathe.
Thus, you perceive, if any unnatural pressure is made upon a part of the system, motion is impeded, and without free motion, health cannot exist; that with such pressure, parts upon which it is made are impoverished; that if clothing is worn too tightly about the body, the breathing function of the skin is hindered, and that debility is the result; that in particular, if the chest is compressed, as is often done by the use of stays and corsets, tight dresses, and the like, that important function of respiration is impeded, and that thus the health must inevitably sink. These principles cannot be too much studied, or too much carried out in practice, in order to secure the firmest and most enduring health.
There are also other ill effects than those we have glanced at that are caused by tight clothing. Thus, in compressing the chest, the abdominal organs are also made to suffer. The functions of the stomach cannot go on properly; the food is not digested as it should be; the liver cannot act freely; the bowels become torpid and constipated; the uterus is pressed out of its place, causing prolapsus uteri, or falling of the womb, as it is called; neither the blood-making, the blood-purifying, nor the blood-distributing processes can go on healthfully. Thus the entire system is made to suffer merely from the pressure made upon the external parts of the body.