Many women consider the corset necessary as a figure-improver,
especially if they suffer from excessive fatness. They will be surprised
to hear that the corset is one of the principal causes of their
corpulence. Says Professor M. Williams: “There is one horror which no
lady can bear to contemplate, viz. fat. What is fat? It is an
accumulation of unburnt body-fuse. How can we get rid of it when
accumulated in excess? Simply by burning it away—this burning being done
by means of the oxygen inhaled by the lungs. If, as Mr. Lennox Browne
has shown, a lady with normal lung capacity of 125 cubic inches, reduces
this to 78 inches by means of her stays, and attains 118 inches all at
once on leaving them off, it is certain that her prospects of becoming
fat and flabby as she advances towards middle age are greatly increased
by tight lacing, and the consequent suppression of natural respiration.”
Thus corpulence may be put down as a sixth—or rather seventh—æsthetic
disadvantage resulting from the use of corsets.
The reason why women, although inferior to men in muscular development,
have softer and rounder forms, is because there is a greater natural
tendency in women than in men towards the accumulation of fatty tissue
under the skin. The least excess of this adipose tissue is, however, as
fatal as emaciation to that admiration of Personal Beauty which
constitutes the essence of Love. Leanness repels the æsthetico-amorous
sense because it obliterates the round contours of beauty, exposes the
sinews and bones, and thus suggests old age and disease. Corpulence
repels it because it destroys all delicacy of form, all grace of
movement, and in its exaggerated forms may indeed be looked upon as a
real disease imperatively calling for medical treatment; as Dr. Oscar
Maas shows most clearly and concisely in his pamphlet on the
“Schwenninger Cure,” which should be read by all who suffer from
obesity.
Although the very “father of medicine,” Hippokrates, studied the subject
of corpulence, and formulated rules for curing it, doctors still
disagree regarding some of the details of its treatment. Some forbid all
fatty food, others prescribe it in small quantities, and Dr. Ebstein
specially recommends fat viands and sauces as preventives; but the
preponderance of the best medical opinion is against him. Dr. Say
recommends the drinking of very large quantities of tea, while Professor
Oertel urges the diminution of fluids in the body, first by drinking
little, and secondly by inducing copious perspiration, either
artificially (by hot air and steam baths, etc.), or, what is much
better, by brisk daily exercise. Dr. Schwenninger, who secured so much
fame by reducing Bismarck’s weight about 40 pounds, forbids the taking
of liquids during or within an hour or two of meal-time; in other words,
he counsels his patients not to eat and drink at the same time.
On the two most important points all authorities are practically agreed.
They are that the patient must avoid food which contains large
quantities of starch and sugar (such as cake, pastry, potatoes, bread,
pudding, honey, syrup, etc.); and secondly, that he must take as much
exercise as possible in the open air, because during walking the bodily
fat is consumed as fuel, to keep the machine going.
The notorious Mr. Banting, who reduced his weight in a year from 202 to
150 pounds, “lived on beef, mutton, fish, bacon, dry toast and biscuit,
poultry, game, tea, coffee, claret, and sherry in small quantities, and
a night-cap of gin, whisky, brandy, or wine. He _abstained_ from the
following articles: pork, veal, salmon, eels, herrings, sugar, milk, and
all sorts of vegetables grown underground, and nearly all fatty and
farinaceous substances. He daily drank 43 ounces of liquids. On this
diet he kept himself for seven years at 150 pounds. He found, what other
experience confirms, that _sugar was the most powerful of all
fatteners_” (Dr. G. M. Beard, in _Eating and Drinking_, a most
entertaining and useful little volume).
Lean persons wishing to increase their weight need only reverse the
directions here given as regards the choice or avoidance of certain
articles of food. Not so, however, with regard to exercise. If you wish
to reduce your corpulence, take exercise; if you wish to increase your
weight, again take exercise. The apparent paradox lurking in this rule
is easily explained. If you are too fat and walk a great deal, you burn
up the superfluous _fat_ and lose weight. If you are too lean and walk a
great deal you increase the bulk of your _muscles_, and thus gain
weight. Moreover, you greatly stimulate your appetite, and become able
to eat larger quantities of sweet and starchy food—more than enough to
counteract the wear and tear caused by the exercise.
Muscle is the plastic material of beauty. Fat should only be present in
sufficient quantity to prevent the irregular outlines of the muscles
from being too conspicuously indicated, at the expense of rounded
smoothness. What the ancient Greeks thought on this subject is vividly
shown in the following remarks by Dr. Maas: “According to the unanimous
testimony of Thukydides, Plato, Xenophon, the gymnastic exercises to
which the Greeks were so passionately addicted, and which constituted,
as is well known, a very essential part of the public education of the
young, had for their avowed object the prevention of undue corpulence,
since an excessive paunch did not only offend the highly-developed
æsthetic sense of this talented nation, but was justly regarded as an
impediment to bodily activity. In order, therefore, to make the youths
not only beautiful, but also vigorous and able to resist hardship, and
thus more capable of serving their country, they were, from their
childhood, and uninterruptedly, exercised daily in running, wrestling,
throwing the discus, etc.; so that the prevention of corpulence was
practically raised to a formal state-maxim, and as such enforced
occasionally with unyielding persistence.”
The ruinous consequences of an exaggerated abdomen to the harmonious
proportions of the body, and to grace of attitude and gait, are so
universally known that it would be superfluous to apply any of our
negative tests of Beauty—such as the facts that apes and savages are
commonly characterised by protuberant bellies, and that intemperance and
gluttony have the same disastrous effect on Personal Beauty. In
civilised communities, indolence and beer-drinking are the chief causes
predisposing to corpulence. In Bavaria, where enormous quantities of
beer are consumed, almost all the men are deformed by obesity; but in
other countries, as a rule, women suffer more from this anomaly than
men, because they lead a less active life.
It may be stated as a general rule that girls under eighteen are too
slight and women over thirty too heavy—"fat and forty." This calamity is
commonly looked on as one of the inevitable dispensations of Providence,
whereas it is simply a result of indolence and ignorance. With a little
care in dieting, and two or three hours a day devoted to walking,
rowing, tennis, swimming, dancing, etc., any young lady can add ten to
fifteen pounds to her weight in one summer, or reduce it by that amount,
as may be desired. But as the consumption of enormous quantities of
fresh air by the unimprisoned lungs is the absolute condition of success
in this beautifying process, it is useless to attempt it without laying
aside the corset.
The plea that corsets are needed to hold up the heavy clothing is of no
moment. Women, like men, should wear their clothing suspended from the
shoulder, which is a great deal more conducive to health, comfort, and
gracefulness than the clumsy fashion of attaching everything to the
waist.
Still less weight can be attached to the monstrous argument that women
need stays for support. What an insulting proposition to assert that
civilised woman is so imperfectly constructed that she alone of all
created beings needs artificial surgical support to keep her body in
position! If there are any women so very corpulent or so very lean that
they need a corset as a figure-improver or a support, then let them have
it for heaven’s sake, and look upon themselves as subjects ripe for
medical treatment. What is objected to here is that strong, healthy,
well-shaped girls should deform themselves deliberately by wearing
tight, unshapely corsets, rankly offensive to the æsthetic sense.