the waist is not allowed to increase proportionately. Many a big young woman will state with pride that her waist measurement has not increased since she was a girl. It has not had the opportunity of doing so! Now, the working classes tend, by breeding and occupation, to be more thickset than the middle and upper classes. Their daily labour tends to develop the chest and cover it with muscle. Their waists should be larger in proportion; but the working girl thinks even more of a slim waist than does her more highly educated sister. When it is further considered that in matters of food, attention to the action of the bowels, fresh air, and bathing, the more intelligent portion of the population is more careful than the lower, the occurrence of chlorosis as a disease of the working classes is very largely explained. Compression of the liver, stomach and intestines causes constipation and dyspepsia; these are increased by indoor life in house or workshop, and a state of toxæmia is set up by the retention of morbid products, which in turn causes a condition of anæmia or chlorosis. Many of the cases will not yield to the administration of iron, even if the liver be attacked with calomel and the bone marrow stimulated with arsenic at the same time. A fortnight in bed works wonders in these cases, probably because putting the patient to bed is the only way in which she can be made to take off her corsets. It is these patients who, when they marry and become pregnant, suffer more than others from the series of troubles which depend primarily on inefficient action of the liver and intestines, and which are now frequently grouped together under the name "hepatic toxæmia." During pregnancy, indeed, the corset is seen at its worst. By preserving "a waist" as long as possible in gestation many women keep down the growing uterus, thereby distending and weakening the muscles of the lower abdominal wall, and altering the relations of the contained viscera. In this way the recti become permanently separated, and all chance of regaining the figure after parturition is lost. Again, the use of the corset during the later weeks of the puerperium, when the uterus is still large and more movable than usual, is a fertile cause of prolapse and retroversion with pelvic gestation."
The above quotation may convey the idea that I was at the time of writing opposed to the use of corsets in general. This was by no means the case, and as a good deal of nonsense on the subject still appears from time to time in the daily papers, and even in the medical journals, I need offer no apology for summarising the facts of the case before concluding these remarks.
A great many dress reformers have written against the use of the corset, holding that any use of this article is abuse, and that it should be discarded altogether. Their arguments have convinced but few, and their example has not been followed even by these. For they have not gone to the root of the matter, and have not realised that In the modern dress of woman the corset is an essential factor. From the point of view of dress, the human body consists of three portions. There is an upper part with bony walls—the chest; a lower part with bony walls—the pelvis; and a middle part with soft anterior and lateral walls between the two. Consider the dress of a labouring man! He wears a coat and waistcoat which he removes when at work. His trousers are supported by a belt so as to leave his
