The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in HygieneGalbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Science
The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in Hygiene
Galbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Women -- Health and hygiene
It is self-evident that any restriction placed about the waist, by
preventing the full expansion of the ribs and the descent of the
diaphragm, will further embarrass the heart's action by diminishing
the amount of room it has to work in, at the same time that it
diminishes the amount of oxygen which is inspired. Fresh air is by far
the most important part of the daily food. It is in the lungs that the
blood throws off its carbonic acid and other impurities; but it is
able to do this only when the lungs are supplied with an abundance of
oxygen. Every inch which a woman adds to her chest measure adds to the
measure of her days.
Great physical injury has followed women playing lawn-tennis while
tightly corseted. And although dancing is a much milder exercise,
since it frequently takes place in an overheated and poorly ventilated
room, fatal results occasionally occur from the same cause.
Standing erect calls into action almost all the muscles of the trunk,
neck, and lower extremities. So long as the line of gravity falls
within the area of the feet, the muscular effort required is so slight
that it is little more than the tonicity contained in all living
muscle. The greater the displacement of the line of gravity, the
greater the muscular effort required to maintain the equilibrium of
the body. Up to a certain extent, exercising the muscle develops the
strength and size of the muscle. On the other hand, when a muscle
within the body is unused, it wastes; when used within certain limits,
it grows. But when the corset splint is applied to the body of the
young girl, it supplants the functions of the abdominal and back
muscles, which is to hold the trunk erect, and these muscles gradually
grow weak and waste. And so the liability to the various spinal
curvatures is increased.
The original object of the corset was to give greater prominence to
the hips and abdomen. But fashions change! In "the French figure" or
straight-front corset now in vogue the pelvis is tilted forward,
producing a sinking in of the abdomen and a marked prominence of the
hips and sacrum, necessitating a compensatory curve of the spine which
increases the curvature forward at the small of the back-- a deformity
which, a few years ago, women were going to orthopedic surgeons to
have corrected. In this attitude the line passing through the centre
of gravity strikes the heels, the knees are hyper-extended, and the
muscles of the calves and thighs are rendered tense.
By interfering with the muscular development and digestion, the girl
is very apt to become angular, flat-chested, anemic, and to have a
muddy complexion. And so the corset really defeats the object for
which it was put on-- that of giving the girl a good figure and
enhancing her beauty.
There is no objection to girls wearing any of the various forms of
hygienic waists now on the market.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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