ill-constructed corset. When this pernicious practice is persevered in for any length of time, decrepitude is sure to set in early. The unnatural pressure to which the internal viscera have been subject has cramped and reduced their energy; and, the resources being exhausted, nothing remains but gloom and misery: when, however, proper care has been exercised in early and middle life, old age may be rendered cheerful and lovely. Nature has made a due provision for all circumstances, and provided the sustaining nutrition for advanced age. This was accomplished in the "change of life;" and, as we before remarked, nothing but its premature exhaustion can render declining life painful. What different ideas are suggested to the mind on meeting with an elderly person whose gentle life is the centre of a family's tender care and affection, blessed and cherished by the circle of her friends: or to see a woman still in middle age, bed-ridden, anxious, desponding, and wretched; oppressed by the recollection of her early habits, when, by irrational dressing, her lungs were deprived of their proper supply of air, the stomach was compressed, and digestion and circulation impeded; and now to mark the result in the debilitated constitution which is broken down with suffering, is a contrast as great and as painful as it is possible to meet with.
It is difficult to convey in writing a proper idea of what we can do for sufferers of this kind. Cases vary so much that no general principles, except those already laid down in preceding chapters, can ever be applied. But of our success thousands of witnesses are now living. Many who were confined to their bed or room have, through the support which they have received by our adaptations, been enabled to take a moderate amount of exercise, and to enjoy a state of comfort to which they had been for years strangers. They were returning to a second childhood; and as in the earlier stages of life we had to sustain the debilitated or yielding part, so in the decline of the body we perform the same duties. In some cases a simple bandage is all that is required, in others a more complicated contrivance, such as our invisible supports; but in all cases, even the most desperate, we can afford relief, and can give that relief too in many cases in which medicine is useless or positively injurious. This is the reason why we always have the patronage of medical men. We never meddle with physic; but, when this is inappropriate, practitioners are always glad to refer to us.
