The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1891-03-26
NATURAL BREATHING.
From a Lecture by j. y. Kellogg. NJ. D., {
Battle Creek Santa rum.

From Lecture by j. y. Kellogg, NJ. D., of
Battle Creek Sanitariun.
Natural breathing seems to have be-
come lost art among women. and sad
loss it is. In addressing an audience of
several hundred ladies recently. asked
them all to take deep breath and
was very funny to see a whole audience
OF shoulders come up. Some of these
young ladies were being trained in
vocal music. and the professor was
that is, they repress d the shoulder mo-
ton and the movement Of the upper
chest. but the handles of the bellows
were so tied down that the only way to
get more air into the lungs under these
conditions was for the diaphragm to
crowd the contents of the abdominal
viscera downward and this is very
harmful. Abdominal breathing with
out abundance of room is great dam
age instead of advantage. The young
women who are trying to make their
waists like the fashion plates, do it at
the expense of health. The stomach,
liver and kidneys are directly under the
point where the heaviest pressure
comes. and if the waist is made smaller
it must be by crowding these organs
down, and as the cavity is packed full
by nature. other organs are displaced in
the crowding process.
called little girl eleven years old
upon the platform and fotind that her
waist measured twenty-six inches and
she could expand three and half
inches-no movement of the shoulders,
her ribs swelling out just like those of
a boy or a man. Some of the members
Of the vocal class came up for measure
mont. One young lady measured
twenty-five inches around the waist
and she could expand only half an inch
have OBJ erved that young ladies grow
smaller around the waist as they grow
older although the rest of the body may
be growing. She was just twice as old
as the tile girl. and yet four inches
smaller. Another could expand only
three-eighths of an inch while third
was actually half an inch smaller when
she took deep breath.
The point where the greatest pressure
usually comes in making up the fash
ionable dress is the most important
point in the whole body except the lit
tie vital point in the brain. The waist
line covers the abdominal brain. the
solar plexus, which regulates the di-
gestive sy>tem. 1t is the headquarters
of the nerves of animal life. These
nerves of vegetative life have charge of
the blood-making and all the nutritive
functions of growth and repairs What
right has woman to modify her form
in this senseless way? 1t Is SO we'll
understood that woman is all the time
half cholzed for breath that when she
faints away in crowded audience room,
the first thing is to unfasten her stays
and give her lungs a chance to get more
air. Did you ever hear Of anybody
loosening the vest of man who had
tainted away? The ladies of this coun-
try, almost without exception, young
or old. do not breathe enough. They
enfeeble their constitutions in this way,
and that is what think is the matter
of the race and why we are falling into
decay. The young men and women of
the present are the victims not only of
their own follies, but are suffering be-
cause of an invalid race of mothers
Reported by Helen l.. Manning.