does exist. It is impossible for any child, whose mother has
diminished her breathing capacity by lacing, to have a sound and
vigorous organization. If girls will persist in ruining their
vital organs as they grow up to womanhood, and if women will
continue this destructive habit, the race must inevitably
deteriorate. It may be asserted, therefore, without exaggeration,
that not only the welfare of the future generations, but the
salvation of the race depends on the correction of this evil
habit. The pathological consequences of continued and prolonged
pressure on any vital structure are innutrition, congestion,
inflammation, and ulceration, resulting in weakness, waste of
substance, and destruction of tissue. The normal sensibility of
the part is also destroyed. No woman can ever forget the pain she
endured when she first applied the corsets; but in time the
compressed organs become torpid; the muscles lose their
contractile power, and she feels dependent on the mechanical
support of the corset. But the mischief is not limited to local
weakness and insensibility. The general strength and general
sensibility correspond with the breathing capacity. If she has
diminished her "breath of life," she has just to that extent
destroyed all normal sensibility. She can neither feel nor think
normally. But in place of pleasurable sensations and ennobling
thoughts, are an indescribable array of aches, pains, weaknesses,
irritations, and nameless distresses of body, with dreamy
vagaries, fitful impulses, and morbid sentimentalities of mind.
And yet another evil is to be mentioned to render the catalogue
complete. Every particle of food must be aerated in the lungs
before it can be assimilated. It follows, therefore, that no one
can be well nourished who has not a full, free, and unimpeded
action of the lungs. In the contracted chest, the external
measurement is reduced one half; but as the upper portions of the
lungs cannot be fully inflated until the lower portions are fully
expanded, it follows that the breathing capacity is diminished
more than one half. It is wonderful how anyone can endure
existence, or long survive, in this devitalized condition; yet,
thousands do, and with careful nursing, manage to bring into the
world several sickly children.