failures to cure squarely up to the other, and, working together, they recorded many successes. I have been stimulated to resume old studies, and to publish the following observations (which are partly, also, the result of association with an orthopedist) even though conclusions based on a small amount of material must be necessarily incomplete and tentative.
SUMMARY.
Corsets may be classed as corrective, neutral and harmful.
The average corset still shows constriction at the waist line of the form if not of the degree of the hour-glass design.
My observation contradicts the claim that low abdominal girdling and "lifting" have taken the place of waist-line pressure. Tests show that in two-thirds of the cases there was greater pressure at the waist than lower on the abdomen, one-third being equal. In thin women neutral conditions were general. Pressures on the lower ribs still ran high. In one-half the cases all pressures ran high. The spring or gap of the corset when unhooked gives an excellent practical measure of the amount of pressure exerted, two and a half inches being the most that should be tolerated. Comparison of the girth over the corset with that measured around the undershirt is worthless as an index of constriction. Interior tests showed little effect on increase in vaginal pressures in corseted women whose abdominal walls and pelvic floor were firm, but they indicate a marked rise in intrapelvic pressure from exertion in corseted women whose muscles are flabby and interior supports relaxed. The tight corset harms vigorous women little, weaker women greatly.
Among postures one-half were found defective, one-third good. Alteration in or change of the corset often brought about marked improvement in attitude. A simple test consists in standing a patient with heels against a mark on the floor, and her side to the wall and noting the location of the scapula and buttock with and without the corset and any change for the better or worse in the center of gravity and in uprightness. Certain types of body form are particularly susceptible to defective corseting, such as the individual with the long and slender trunk.
Types Affected by Corsets.-The muscular and active woman, with abdominal walls of good tone, and pelvic floor firm and uninjured, with internal organs normally anchored and no great fat padding-this type is little harmed by corsets.
The relaxed woman, long bodied, her lower chest easily com-
