and healthy motions, the heart and stomach are deranged, the action of the liver hampered, the movements of the bowels restricted. Hence arise indigestion, constipation, headaches, weariness, depression of spirits, palpitation, and a feeling of oppression at the heart, pain in the side, eruptions on the skin, which either feels chilly all over its surface or sometimes burns, and, what will probably seem of much more importance to those whom vanity has induced to lace tightly, pallor and thickness of complexion, with a yellowish or greyish tinge to the cheeks, and owing to impaired circulation, swelling and redness of the hands and feet, and, worst of all to the would-be beauty, redness of the nose. The spine also not unfrequently becomes curved laterally.
Furthermore, all the abdominal organs are displaced by pressure round the waist. If you take a bladder full of air and squeeze it firmly in the middle, the air, following the line of least resistance, will bulge out the bladder on either side of your fingers. Now, it is very much the same with the human body with regard to stays, the pressure of which is greatest at the waist, least at the bottom of the abdomen. The abdominal organs follow the line of least resistance, and are, therefore, displaced downwards.4[1] This displacement is productive of many and serious ills, constant pain and weariness
- ↑ 4 Plate 4 when compared with Plate 3 shows the displacement of the chief vital organs. The abdominal organs which are not shown in the plates are displaced downwards in a similar manner.
