Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/75

 lace it down to that "wasp-like waist," against which artists and physicians have so long and so vainly protested.

The circumference of the waist in a woman five feet high should not be less than twenty-five inches, and from this it should increase half an inch in circumference for every additional inch in height, so that a woman five feet eight inches high should measure twenty-nine inches around the waist, of course without the clothing.

The result of any greater compression than this is disastrous in every respect. We have already shown how it spoils the shape of the shoulders, and flattens and displaces the breasts. Were this all, it might pass. But far more serious consequences arise. The lungs are cramped and cannot expand. The blood, in consequence, is not purified, the complexion soon becomes muddy, the lips pale or purple, and if there is any tendency to consumption, it is promptly developed. The pressure downward is equally productive of harm. A physician who pays special attention to diseases of women, recently told us that four-fifths of the cases of uterine complaint which he had to treat in unmarried women were directly traceable to this violent and unnatural pressure upon the contents of the abdomen. Our own experience convinces us that his statement is hardly overdrawn. With these consequences plainly staring them in the face, it is