admit air enough to vitalize the blood,) and become fatigued? (because, these muscles used in walking, become exhausted from the absence of well arterialized blood.) No! laced ladies are good enough to ride on the softest cushioned and most easy-riding carriages. Take care, driver! be careful, or you'll jolt them in two; for, such frail ware break in two very easily, in the middle.
To be productive of health, or physical, or mental happiness, the circulation must be uniform; and every thing which tends either to retard the circulation as a whole, or to increase the circulation of some portions, and diminish that of other portions, will be proportionally ruinous. Medical men have not appreciated the importance of equality, or proportion, of circulation in the different parts. The absence of this uniformity in the circulation, is one of the main causes of disease; and restoring it, will cure most diseases. A moment's reflection and a little observation, will convince everyone of the importance of this principle, and also show how wofully it is violated by tight-lacing.
A Philadelphia physician, in a letter to a lady on the effect of wearing corsets, has the following remarks: 'I anticipate the happy period when the fairest portion of the fair creation will step forth unencumbered with slabs of walnut and tiers of whalebone. The constitution of our females must be excellent, to withstand in any tolerable degree, the inflictions of the corset, eight hours every day. No other animal could survive it. Take the honest ox, and enclose his sides with hoop-poles, put an oaken plank beneath him, and gird the whole with a bed cord, and demand of him labour. He would labour indeed, but it would be for breath.'
The second great function of life affected by tight-lacing, is the Nervous System and Brain—that portion of the body called into action in the manufacture and exercise of feeling, thought, sensation—that portion of us for which all others were made, and which lives and is, and which constitutes the most exalted function of our nature, as well as the end and object of our existence. All our pleasures are experienced by its instrumentality, and are connected with its normal, healthy action; while every pain we experience or are capable of experiencing in this world, is the legitimate product of its abnormal, unhealthy action. For is it possible for these organs to be unhealthy, or morbidly active, or inflamed, or in any way to depart from their healthy action, without causing pain, and in just that proportion in which they depart therefrom. Those in whom this department of their organization either greatly predominates, or becomes diseased or inflamed, will generally have cold hands and feet, but much heat and pain in the head, if not a severe and continual head ache, because too much blood flows to the head, and too little to the extremities. This causes them to feel nervous and irratible, and to become excited inordinately, even by trifles. Their heated imagination magnifies a mole-hill till it becomes a mountain. They are kept in a continual fever of excitement; tossed backward and forward by currents and counter-currents of feelings which they find it impossible to control. Sometimes they are elated beyond measure, and filled with ecstasy; and anon they are plunged into the very depths of despair by some trifle, too insignificant to affect a healthy brain; for their sensibilities are morbidly alive to every thing. They retire to their couch, but not to sleep. The boiling blood courses through their brain, and their labouring pulsations shake their very frame. They think and feel intensely upon every thing, only to increase the disease, and aggravate their mental sufferings. If Cautiousness be large, they are afraid of their own shadow, and see all their paths filled with lions and tigers. If Approbativeness be large, they thirst for praise, but see the desired cup dashed from their lips by merely imaginary neglects, which are so construed that they cause the deepest chargin and mortification. They seek sleep but find it not.
