A PHYSICIAN has said: "A scientifically fitted corset is a boon to many women. Without it they never become strong, but with it they receive the necessary assistance that enables them to be transformed from unhappy apparitions and hypochondriacs without ambition to normal, healthy women." And again: "In many cases of semi-invalidism a properly constructed, corset will lift its wearer to health and develop her form into lines of beauty."
It is the contention of the physiological corset maker that the lines of beauty are the lines of health, and that physical beauty cannot exist without the healthful, normal development of the body. The corset should be subject to the criticism of the physician or surgeon, and the patient or the corset maker who is not amenable to that criticism is neither sensible nor scientific.
The prime factor in the improvement of bad conditions is to possess ourselves of a complete knowledge of those conditions. Corsets have been, and most of them still are, wrong from the physiological standpoint. A recognition of this fact is the first step toward making them right. Knowing why and where they are wrong is clearly demonstrable by scientific tests that are easily made by physician or corset maker, and this is the next step toward the needed reformation. To institute a method to make them right is the last and most important step of the process.
Criticism is one of the most unsatisfying things in the scheme of existence unless it be possible to point out the remedy for the existing evil. That corsets could be right has been a matter of grave doubt to the physiologists for so long that even now they view the corset makers' claims to the correctness of their designs with considerable incredulity. In the language of one member of the profession. they would "like to be shown." The corset maker cannot deceive the physician; corsets, according to therapeutic value, are classed as good, bad or indifferent. The indifferent corsets are not as plentiful as the bad, and the good corsets are the fewest in number. The indifferent corset is that which does not effect any hygienic betterment and really should be classed as bad. The bad corset prevents perfect development, induces abnormality of shape and function. while the good corset tends to the better development of the body, serving as a physical training for the increase of healthful vitality.
Place an indifferent corset upon a poorly developed subject whose body is out of poise chest hollowed, abdomen forward, and there will be no improvement in the conditions, even though such a corset may not be tight in the waist and may even fit the outlines of the body. Apply the bad corset and the evil conditions are complicated and increased, while the good corset first of all lifts the body into the correct poise by the bracing up and in of the abdominal walls, restores normal proportions, induces deep breathing and puts the subject into a position for the attainment of
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