XII.
CLOTHING.
THERE is no duty of those persons having control of a family where
principle and practice are more at variance than in regulating the dress
of young girls, especially at the most important and critical period of
life. It is a difficult duty for parents and teachers to contend with
the power of fashion, which at this time of a young girl's life is
frequently the ruling thought, and when to be out of the fashion, to be
odd and not dress as all her companions do, is a mortification and grief
that no argument or instructions can relieve. The mother is often so
overborne that, in spite of her better wishes, the daughter adopts modes
of dress alike ruinous to health and to beauty.
The greatest protection against such an emergency is to train a
child to understand the construction of her own body and to impress upon
her, in early days, her obligations to the invisible Friend and Guardian
of her life, the "Former of her body and the Father of her spirit," who
has committed to her care so precious and beautiful a casket. And the
more she can be made to realize the skill and beauty of construction
shown in her earthly frame, the more will she feel the obligation to
protect it from injury and abuse.
It is a singular fact that the war of fashion has attacked most
fatally what seems to be the strongest foundation and defense of the
body, the bones. For this reason, the construction and functions of this
part of the body will now receive attention.
The bones are composed of two substances, one animal,
and the other mineral. The animal part is a very fine network, called
cellular membrane. In this are
deposited the harder mineral substances, which are composed principally
of carbonate and phosphate of lime. In very early life, the bones
consist chiefly of the animal part, and are then soft and pliant. As the
child advances in age, the bones grow harder, by the gradual deposition
of the phosphate of lime, which is supplied by the food, and carried to
the bones by the blood. In old age, the hardest material preponderates;
making the bones more brittle than in earlier life.
The bones are covered with a thin skin or membrane, filled with
small blood-vessels which convey nourishment to them.
Where the bones unite with others to form joints, they are covered
with cartilage, which is a
smooth, white, elastic substance. This enables the joints to move
smoothly, while its elasticity prevents injuries from sudden jars.
The joints are bound together by strong, elastic bands called
ligaments, which hold them
firmly and prevent dislocation.
Between the ends of the bones that unite to form joints are small
sacks or bags, that contain a soft lubricating fluid. This answers the
same purpose for the joints as oil in making machinery work smoothly,
while the supply is constant and always in exact proportion to the
demand.
If you will examine the leg of some fowl, you can see the cartilage
that covers the ends of the bones at the joints, and the strong white
ligaments that bind the joints together.
The health of the bones depends on the proper nourishment and
exercise of the body as much as that of any other part. When a child is
feeble and unhealthy, or when it grows up without exercise, the bones do
not become firm and hard as they are when the body is healthfully
developed by exercise. The size as well as the strength of the
bones, to a certain extent, also depend upon exercise and good health.
The chief supporter of the body is the spine, which consists of
twenty-four small bones, interlocked or hooked into each other, while
between them are elastic cushions of cartilage which aid in preserving
the upright, natural position. Fig. 61 shows three of the spinal bones,
hooked into each other, the dark spaces showing the disks or flat
circular plates of cartilage between them.
[Illustration: An illustration of three joined vertebrae.]
The spine is held in its proper position, partly by the ribs, partly
by muscles, partly by aid of the elastic disks, and partly by the close
packing of the intestines in front of it.
The upper part of the spine is often thrown out of its proper
position by constant stooping of the head over books or work. This
affects the elastic disks so that they grow thick at the back side and
thinner at the front side by such constant pressure. The result is the
awkward projection of the head forward which is often seen in schools
and colleges.
Another distortion of the spine is produced by tight dress around
the waist. The liver occupies the right side of the body and is a solid
mass, while on the other side is the larger part of the stomach, which
is often empty. The consequence of tight dress around the waist is a
constant pressure of the spine toward the unsupported part where the
stomach lies. Thus the elastic disks again are compressed; till they
become thinner on one side than the other, and harden into that
condition. This produces what is called the
lateral curvature of the spine,
making one shoulder higher than the other.
The compression of the lower part of the waist is especially
dangerous at the time young girls first enter society and are tempted to
dress according to the fashion. Many a school-girl, whose waist was
originally of a proper and healthful size, has gradually pressed the
soft bones of youth until the lower ribs that should rise and fall with
every breath, become entirely unused. Then the abdominal breathing,
performed by the lower part of the lungs, ceases; the whole system
becomes reduced in strength; the abdominal muscles that hold up the
interior organs become weak, and the upper ones gradually sink upon the
lower.
This pressure of the upper interior organs upon the lower ones, by
tight dress, is increased by the weight of clothing resting on the hips
and abdomen. Corsets, as usually worn, have no support from the
shoulders, and consequently all the weight of dress resting upon or
above them presses upon the hips and abdomen, and this in such a way as
to throw out of use and thus weaken the most important supporting
muscles of the abdomen, and impede abdominal breathing.
The diaphragm is a kind of muscular floor, extending across the
centre of the body, on which the heart and lungs rest. Beneath it are
the liver, stomach, and the abdominal viscera, or intestines, which are
supported by the abdominal muscles, running upward, downward, and
crosswise. When these muscles are thrown out of use, they lose their
power, the whole system of organs mainly resting on them for support can
not continue in their naturally snug, compact, and rounded form, but
become separated, elongated, and unsupported. The
stomach begins to draw from
above instead of resting on the viscera beneath. This in some cases
causes dull and wandering pains, a sense of pulling at the centre of the
chest, and a drawing downward at the pit of the stomach. Then as the
support beneath is really gone,
there is what is often called "a feeling of
goneness." This is sometimes
relieved by food, which, so long as it remains in a solid form, helps to
hold up the falling superstructure.
This displacement of the stomach, liver, and spleen interrupts their
healthful functions, and dyspepsia and biliary difficulties not
unfrequently are the result.
As the stomach and its appendages fall downward, the
diaphragm, which holds up the
heart and lungs, must descend also. In this state of things, the
inflation of the lungs is less and less aided by the abdominal muscles,
and is confined chiefly to their upper portion. Breathing sometimes thus
becomes quicker and shorter on account of the elongated or debilitated
condition of the assisting organs. Consumption not unfrequently results
from this cause.
The heart also feels the
evil. "Palpitations,flutterings,sinking feelings," all show that, in the
language of Scripture, "the heart trembleth, and is moved out of its
place."
But the lower intestines are
the greatest sufferers from this dreadful abuse of nature. Having the
weight of all the unsupported organs above pressing them into unnatural
and distorted positions, the passage of the food is interrupted, and
inflammations, indurations, and constipation are the frequent result.
Dreadful ulcers and cancers may be traced in some instances to this
cause.
Although these internal displacements are most common among women,
some foolish members of the other sex are adopting customs of dress, in
girding the central portion of the body, that tend to similar results.
But this distortion brings upon woman peculiar distresses. The
pressure of the whole superincumbent mass on the pelvic or lower organs
induces sufferings proportioned in acuteness to the extreme delicacy and
sensitiveness of the parts thus crushed. And the intimate connection of
these organs with the brain and whole nervous system renders injuries
thus inflicted the causes of the most extreme anguish, both of the body
and mind. This evil is becoming so common, not only among married women,
but among young girls, as to be a just cause for universal alarm.
How very common these sufferings are, few but the medical profession
can realize, because they are troubles that must be concealed. Many a
woman is moving about in uncomplaining agony who, with any other trouble
involving equal suffering, would be on her bed surrounded by
sympathizing friends.
The terrible sufferings that are sometimes thus induced can never be
conceived of, or at all appreciated from, any use of language. Nothing
that the public can be made to believe on this subject will ever equal
the reality. Not only mature persons and mothers, but fair young girls
sometimes, are shut up for months and years as helpless and suffering
invalids from this cause. This may be found all over the land. And there
frequently is a horrible extremity of suffering in certain forms of this
evil, which no woman of feeble constitution can ever be certain may not
be her doom. Not that in all cases this extremity is involved, but none
can say who will escape it.
In regard to this, if one must choose for a friend or a child, on
the one hand, the horrible torments inflicted by savage Indians or cruel
inquisitors on their victims, or, on the other, the protracted agonies
that result from such deformities and displacements, sometimes the
former would be a merciful exchange.
And yet this is the fate that is coming to meet the young as well as
the mature in every direction. And tender parents are unconsciously
leading their lovely and hapless daughters to this awful doom.
There is no excitement of the imagination in what is here indicated.
If the facts and details could be presented, they would send a groan of
terror all over the land. For it is not one class, or one section, that
is endangered. In every part of our country the evil is progressing.
And, as if these dreadful ills were not enough, there have been
added methods of medical treatment at once useless, torturing to the
mind, and involving great liability to immoralities.
In hope of abating these evils, drawings are given (Fig. 62 and Fig.
63) of the front and back of a jacket that will preserve the advantages
of the corset without its evils. This jacket may at first be fitted to
the figure with corsets underneath it, just like the waist of a dress.
Then, delicate whalebones can be used to stiffen the jacket, so that it
will take the proper shape, when the corset may be dispensed with. The
buttons below are to hold all articles of dress below the waist by
button-holes. By this method, the bust is supported as well as by
corsets, while the shoulders support from above, as they should do, the
weight of the dress below. No stiff bone should be allowed to press in
front, and the jacket should be so loose that a full breath can be
inspired with ease, while in a sitting position.
[Illustration: An illustration of the front of a corset.]
[Illustration: An illustration of the back of a corset.]
The proper way to dress a young girl is to have a cotton or flannel
close-fitting jacket next the body, to which the drawers should be
buttoned. Over this, place the chemise; and over that, such a jacket as
the one here drawn, to which should be buttoned the hoops and other
skirts. Thus every article of dress will be supported by the shoulders.
The sleeves of the jacket can be omitted, and in that case a strong
lining, and also a tape binding, must surround the arm-hole, which
should be loose.
It is hoped that increase of intelligence and moral power among
mothers, and a combination among them to regulate fashions, may banish
the pernicious practices that have prevailed. If a school-girl dress
without corsets and without tight belts could be established as a
fashion, it would be one step gained in the right direction. Then if
mothers could secure daily domestic exercise in chambers, eating-rooms
and parlors in loose dresses, a still farther advance would be secured.
A friend of the writer informs her that her daughter had her wedding
outfit made up by a fashionable milliner in Paris, and every dress was
beautifully fitted to the form, and yet was not compressing to any part.
This was done too without the use of corsets, the stiffening being
delicate and yielding whalebones.
Not only parents but all having the care of young girls, especially
those at boarding-schools, have a fearful responsibility resting upon
them in regard to this important duty.
In regard to the dressing of young children, much discretion is
needed to adapt dress to circumstances and peculiar constitutions. The
leading fact must be borne in mind that the skin is made strong and
healthful by exposure to light and pure air, while cold air, if not
excessive, has a tonic influence. If the skin of infants is rubbed with
the hand till red with blood, and then exposed naked to sun and air in a
well-ventilated room, it will be favorable to health.
There is a constitutional difference in the skin of different
children in regard to retaining the animal heat manufactured within, so
that some need more clothing than others for comfort. Nature is a safe
guide to a careful nurse and mother, and will indicate by the looks and
actions of a child when more clothing is needful. As a general rule, it
is safe for a healthful child to wear as little clothing as suffices to
keep it from complaining of cold. Fifty years ago, it was not common for
children to wear as much under-clothing as they now do. The writer well
remembers how even
girls, though not of strong constitutions, used to play for hours in the
snow-drifts without the protection of drawers, kept warm by exercise and
occasional runs to an open fire. And multitudes of children grew to
vigorous maturity through similar exposures to cold air-baths, and
without the frequent colds and sicknesses so common among children of
the present day, who are more carefully housed and warmly dressed. But
care was taken that the feet should be kept dry and warmly clad,
because, circulation being feebler in the extremities, this precaution
was important.
It must also be considered that age brings with it decrease in vigor
of circulation, and the consequent generation of heat, so that more
warmth of air and clothing is needed at an advanced period of life than
is suitable for the young.
These are the general principles which must be applied with
modification to each individual case. A child of delicate constitution
must have more careful protection from cold air than is desirable for
one more vigorous, while the leading general principle is retained that
cold air is a healthful tonic for the skin whenever it does not produce
an uncomfortable chilliness.
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