told in all the dress news of the day that "fashion says no hips." Corset makers then tried to obliterate every normal curve of the body and make women's forms as nearly as possible like the little wooden effigies of Noah of our childhood memory, and the fashionable corset was made as shown in illustration 8. In all these changes of the form of women's bodies there has been no reason, no common sense. The only utilitarian element in the whole scheme is that of making it possible for those who have something to sell to destroy the utility of that which they have sold the previous season. This is not so irrelevant as it may seem. The physician wishes his patients to wear a physiologically correct corset when he finds one which he can prescribe with the assurance that it will perform its function properly, and the corsetière in filling this requirement is often met with the patient's objection to changing the fit of the dress to suit the change of form. Especially do women of the older generation object to the enlargement of the waist. Many a physician in times past, finding both the corset makers and the corset wearers obdurate in their determination to follow the edicts of fashion instead of the laws of health, has thrown up his hands and surrendered to defeat. An eminent pathologist of Europe wrote: "What is the use of introducing the principles and appliances of hygiene into the huts of the poor and ignorant, when the scions of wealth and pretended intelligence, especially of the gentler sex, show their contempt of hygiene by their dress and general wearing apparel? In days gone by I have battled against that diabolical invention called the corset, but this crusade has been given up by me as absolutely futile."
Athletics and physical culture for women, though not as popular as they should be for the good of the race, have helped to strengthen and unify the little ripples of corset reform which can be traced both here and in England for the past twenty-five years.
First the term "hygienic" was applied to so-called "health waists," a modification of the corset, which, while not constricting the waist line of the body, permitted the pressure of the skirt bands and left the abdomen unsupported, as do all short or incorrectly cut corsets. As late as the year 1910 a so-called hygienic corset was made, as shown in illustration 9, curved in around the waist and utterly lacking abdominal support.
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