What a Young Woman Ought to Know

by Mary Wood-Allen

CHAPTER VII.[ToC]

ADDED INJURIES FROM TIGHT CLOTHING.

We have talked of the effect of tight clothing upon the breathing power. Let us see what other injuries arise from wearing the dress too tight. In the first place, the action of the heart is impeded. The heart is a hollow muscle which must be continually filled with blood and emptied again many times a minute from the moment of birth till the moment of death. You have been lying down for an hour; let me count your pulse. Now sit up for a few moments. I find, now, that it beats faster. Now stand up, and it beats still faster. You see, it increases continually as you get into the erect position. Now walk quickly across the floor and you will see how much it has increased again in rapidity.

You will realize how much the dress interferes with the action of the heart better from an illustration. Professor Sargent made an experiment with a number of girls. One day they were dressed in perfectly loose clothing. He counted the pulse of each. It beat on the average of eighty-four times in a minute. He had them run five hundred and forty yards in the space of two and a half minutes. The pulse was again counted. It had increased to one hundred and fifty-six beats in a minute. This illustrates the effect of exercise even in loose clothing. The next day at the same time, dressed with a corset which reduced the waist to twenty-four inches, they ran the same distance in the same length of time, and then he found that the pulse had run up to one hundred and sixty-eight beats in a minute, showing how much harder it was for the heart to do its work when restricted by tight clothing. No acrobat would attempt to perform feats of strength or of agility if restricted even so much as by a belt.

The Russian Government has issued an edict that the soldiers must wear their pantaloons held up by suspenders, for it has been demonstrated that when they wear them supported by a belt around the waist they are not able to do a fair amount of work. The Austrian Government has also decreed that the pantaloons of soldiers are not to be suspended by belts because of the increase of kidney difficulty caused thereby.

We will understand why kidney difficulty is caused by tight clothing when we study the location of the kidneys and how they are affected by compression of the ribs. Most people think the kidneys lie low down in the back, but in reality they lie up under the short ribs, and the pressure of tight clothing brings the ribs to bear directly upon the kidneys, injuring them in such a way as often to cause disease.

The heart and lungs are protected by a bony framework called the thorax, but below the thorax there is no protection for the internal organs except that of the muscles, therefore the corset or tight clothing can do most damage to the vital organs below the diaphragm. The largest of these is the liver. It should lie close up under the diaphragm, from which it is suspended. Under the influence of tight clothing it is often pressed over on the right side, sometimes extending over the whole front of the body, or even as low down as the navel. It is rutted by the pressure of the ribs. The corset liver is well known in the dissecting-room. Sometimes, where corsets are not worn and tight skirts are worn, supported by the hips, the liver has almost been cut in two, the pieces being only held together by a sufficient band of tissue to keep them from dying.

When Hiram Powers, the great sculptor, was in this country, he once attended an elegant party, and was observed watching very intently a beautifully dressed, fashionable woman. A friend, noticing his interest, said to him, "What an elegant figure she has, hasn't she?"

"Well," said Powers, "I was wondering where she put her liver."

You see, Powers had studied the human body, and when he saw such an outline as the figure of a fashionable woman, he knew that some internal organ must be displaced in order to create that tapering waist, and his anxiety was for the internal organs. As an artist he did not admire the tapering waist, as is shown by the beautiful marble statue which he made. No artist would perpetuate in marble the figure of the fashionable woman.