The miners' express. (Dubuque, Iowa) 1849-1854, 1851-09-17
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Dress and Disease.

Dress and Disease.
Fashion, which, is ever changing, and usually
sets nature at defiance, has changed, within
few years, its ideas of beauty IN the feminine
form. Not many years ago, an essential ele-
ment in beauty was waist like wasp. In
those days, women were insects; for whether
butterflies, beetles, moths or hornets, they were
nearly cut through in the middle, and the upper
and lower halves were held together by very |
slender and fragile stem. The fat ones looked
more like hour. glasses, or like large blocks in
turning lathe, which the artist has already pared
down in the middle. Allknow by what species
of torture this was produced; and tight lacing
was then religion among bellies, and abomination
among physicians and editors. But statuary
got about, and excited some attention TO .7Yt
and then the feminines began to discover that
Venus and Diana and Juno and Minerva and
Ceres and Proserp;ne and Hermone and Aria
dine and Daphne, the handsomest women of an
cient Greece, had full. stout, robust waists, al.
fording ample room for sound pair of lungs,
and making a respectable armful to men or gods
of enlightened tastes. But fashion would not
stag satisfied with this change for the better
Nature is somewhat permanent. But perma
nence is death to fashion, and therefore she aud
nature can never agree, and consequently she is
never long Of the same mind. No sooner had
fashion returned to waists OF natural circumer
ence, than she resolved to have them of unnatu
raj longitude and accordingly whalebone and
whip-cord, which had once been used so pertin-
aciously for compression, were now quite as
vigorously applied to extension. Fashion did
not object to waist Of respectable diameter,
but insisted upon having it OF uniform size, from
the shoulder-joint to the last lumbar vertebra.-
Discardng the wasp and hour glass, sire adopt
ed the pine log; and thus the form feminine is
now head and pair OF arms fitted to a shalt or
pillar, and that shaft set upon hay stack
Those handsome women OF ancient Greece, as
web as those usually handsome women of Mod
ern Circassia, would open their eyes in wonder
at such improvements, or as the statete book of
New Hampshire says, betterments, upon Mrs.
Nature
Preposterous as is this new manipulation of
the human shape, Fashion says it is better than
the absurdity which 1t dsp.acrs, because it does
not make such havoc with the lungs. The old
| mode was most fertile in consumption, and
hence many Of "Natures last best work did
not s.live out half OF their days" But the old
| mode does not produce consumption, or ut least
directly and therefore Fashion triumphs in the
wisdom tthe change. But let not the fantastic
lady lay this tiattering junction. to her soul, if
she has one; for it is poor praise to say that
thing will not produce one mischief, while she
! riots in another. This ls like the humane natu-
ralist, who, to save poor goose from cruel x
pertinent substituted a couple of ducks. If the
new mode does not kill with consumption, it
kills surely and with torlures still more terri
Bile. And il it do not kill outright it dooms its
victims to sufferings that no pen car. describe,
and none but the sufferers can duly estimate
| sutferings which men cannot conceive, because
they proceed from arrangements to which men
are not subject
We can refer to one physician, celebrated in
his peculiar department, who has two curative
establishments, or private hospitals, in the vi
cinity OF New York, beth continually full, the
one with three hundred the other with seven
hundred patients, and from almost or quite
every State in the Union. And his patients are
Of all ages, from twenty to fifty, married and
unmarried, maids, matrons and widows, moth
ers and not mothers. Nor are these the only
sufferers from similar causes for every physi.
clan of extensive, or even moderate practice in
Philadelphia, or any other city or large town,
will say that class of most distressing femi.
nine complaints are now more prevalent than at
any former period We have said enough for the
comprehension of our feminine readers, and of
all husbands who have witnessed suffering from
these causes. Their physicians can tell the
rest.
| What causes produce these terrible maadies
Several the principal being dress, dancing,
and severe sedentary application. In dress We
| object to the exclusively long waists, and the
excessive load of skirts. Ii the wilaebone
frame is not laced SO tight as formerly, i, is
nevertheless too tight for free respil alton, free
action below The lungs, and free action of the
whole system of muscles, from the shoulder to
the hip. All the mucles OF the whole trunk are
compressed and confined till their growth is inn
peded, their power diminished, and t.sy ~ Come
insufficient to hold the trunk upright. Hence
the corset, first put on to modify tina shape, is
now necessary to sus,a,n the body. To th's
COMPRISING apparatus is added the enormous
weight of the lower dress, which drags down
everything, till not only the lungs, prevented
lkom spreading la.erally. are forced to expand
upwards, hat all organs below the lungs are
out of their proper places. The destruc-
If health, happiness, life, from the mala-
us induced is awful Dancing is anoth-
Be Of these mlschiefs. We bold dancing
br as natural, healthful exercise, and
&c of rational innocent amusement. But
ee condemn certain modern dances, In which
the jumping and ,chtrisng motions very
| rapid Quardrilles and editions rational
dances, because the movements are natural and
easy, and the intervals Of rest frequent. But
modern Polkas, which mere French dstor
tons Of old Polish and Hungarian types in
which the jumping and whirling are excessively
rapid, are alone sufficient, without the aid OF
these denominations in dress, to produce the NAL
aides indicated. Waltzing too now practise
ed, with the whirng velocity Of a top, Is anoth
| er source of mischief which the old fashioned,
allow and graceful German waltz did not pro-
duce. The waltz OF the present beats in veloc.
| ity the famous dance of Dervishes, in which
the performers spin a thousand revolutions in a
minute. Another cause of Ae mischief is Sc
dentary application. A girl of sixteen or eigh-
teen compressed in case of whalebone from
the shoulders TO the hips, will sit at piano dali
| ly for five consecutive hours, a stool with
ont back, without the least change of posture
and with her mind screwed up 10 the highest
pitch of concentration. Who can wonder a,
young, growing, yet undeveloped nature, for
sinking prematurely under such trials And
she does sink, as the terrible suffering and pre-
mature decay of many fair flower can testify.
Among these, and other causes Of these evils,
the most fertile is dress. Yet all attempts OF
women TO emancipate ,hemnelves from customs
which are continually dragging them to prema-
Iure groves, or to pains and penalties that rem
der ex'stenee acurse, are met with malignant,
sneers or savage y.lls, by selfish, ignorant and
vulgar Pretenders 70 Virtue, knowledge and re-
hnemen
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