So long as it is the fashion to admire, as models of elegance, the wasp-like figures which are presented at the rooms of mantuamakers and milliners, there will be hundreds of foolish women, who will risk their lives and health to secure some resemblance to these deformities of the human frame. But it is believed, that all sensible women, when they fairly understand the evils which result from tight dressing, and learn the _real_ model of taste and beauty for a perfect female form, will never risk their own health, or the health of their daughters, in efforts to secure one which is as much at variance with good taste, as it is with good health.
Such female figures as our print-shops present, are made, not by the hand of the Author of all grace and beauty, but by the murderous contrivances of the corset-shop; and the more a woman learns the true rules of grace and beauty for the female form, the more her taste will revolt from such ridiculous distortions. The folly of the Chinese belle, who totters on two useless deformities, is nothing, compared to that of the American belle, who impedes all the internal organs in the discharge of their functions, that she may have a slender waist.
It was shown, in the article on the bones and muscles, that exercise was indispensable to their growth and strength. If any muscles are left unemployed, they diminish in size and strength. The girding of tight dresses operates thus on the muscles of the body. If an article, like corsets, is made to hold up the body, then those muscles, which are designed for this purpose, are released from duty, and grow weak; so that, after this has been continued for some time, leaving off the unnatural support produces a feeling of weakness. Thus a person will complain of feeling so weak and unsupported, without corsets, as to be uncomfortable. This is entirely owing to the disuse of those muscles, which corsets throw out of employ.
Another effect of tight dress, is, to stop or impede the office of the lungs. Unless the chest can expand, fully, and with perfect ease, a portion of the lungs is not filled with air, and thus the full purification of the blood is prevented. This movement of the lungs, when they are fully inflated, increases the peristaltic movement of the stomach and bowels, and promotes digestion; any constriction of the waist tends to impede this important operation, and indigestion, with all its attendant evils, is often the result.