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CHAPTER VI.

THE CORSET: ITS HISTORY, USE, AND ABUSE.

"This part of our subject, I regret to say, has not always been wisely treated even by medical writers."

Mrs. Walker.
"Oh, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
Then with a passion I would shake the world,
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
Which cannot hear a feeble lady's voice."
Shakspeare.

OF all articles of human attire there is none, perhaps, that has survived so much abuse as the corset. Introduced into common wear many centuries ago, it was met with the rebuke of the sober and the satire of the vivacious; always painful, and generally injurious, it has, nevertheless, outlived even the general condemnation of the faculty, and spite even of the doctor maintains its ground. There must surely be some fascination in the article, or some latent conviction that, after all, it is a good