DRESS

No subject is so intimately connected with the health of the respiratory

apparatus as dress. And, as bearing upon pulmonary consumption, there

are certain errors in the dress of children which must be noticed. I

believe I echo the voice of my profession, when I declare that the seeds

of consumption are planted in thousands by these mistakes in dress

during infancy and childhood. To correct these, permit me a few

practical suggestions.

The skirt-bands must be left very loose. If you would give the baby's

lungs and heart the best chance for development, the dress about the

chest and waist should be so loose, that, if the child be held up by the

shoulders, its entire dress, except as sustained by the shoulders, will

fall to the floor. With such a dress the blood is so much sooner

oxygenated, that, other things being equal, the characteristic dark red

color of the skin will disappear much sooner than with a close dress.

The bones surrounding the small, feeble lungs, now for the first time

beginning to move, are so soft and pliable, that, under the slightest

pressure, they will yield, and the capacity of the lungs be reduced. Yet

I have seen the nurse use the entire strength of her fingers in the

first application of the skirt-bands. No thoughtful person, acquainted

with the anatomy of the thorax in a new-born babe, can escape the

conclusion that its vitality is seriously compromised by this pressure

upon the principal organs of that vitality. In many instances I have

seen the character of the little one's respiration and pulse decidedly

affected by enlarging the skirt-bands.

Mothers, if you think all this pressure necessary to give your babes a

form, as I have heard some of you say, you forget that the Creator of

your child has all wisdom and skill, and that any changes in the baby's

form and proportions must prove only mischievous. And perhaps you may

not feel your pride hurt by the suggestion, that His taste is quite

equal to yours. That a corset or other machine is needed to give a human

being a form, as is so often suggested, is an imputation on the Creator

which no thoughtful and conscientious person can indulge.

_Dress of Children's Arms._--Prominent among the errors in the dress of

children is the custom of leaving their arms nude.

I speak of the dress for the damp and cold seasons. It should be added,

that during the cool summer evenings too much care cannot be exercised

in protecting the baby's arms and shoulders. If the mother desires to

exhibit her darling's beautiful skin, let her cut out a bit of the dress

near its heart, and when the neighbors come in, let her show the skin

thus exposed to the company. This is so near the central furnace of the

body that it has no chance to get cold; but in the case of the arms and

legs, we have parts far removed from the furnace, and such parts require

special protection.

Take the glass tube of the thermometer out of the frame, and put the

bulb in your baby's mouth. The mercury-rises to 98°. Now, on a cool

evening, place the same bulb in its little hand; (I am supposing it has

naked arms;) the mercury will sink to 60° or less. Need I say that all

the blood which has to make its way through the diminutive and tortuous

vessels of those cold arms must become nearly as cold as the arms and

hands themselves? And need I add, that, as the cold currents of blood

come from both arms back into the vital organs, they play the mischief

there?

If you would preserve your child from croup, pneumonia, and a score of

other grave affections, you should keep its arms warm. Thick woollen

sleeves, fitting the little dimpled arms down to the hands, at least,

constitute the true covering.

A distinguished physician of Paris declared just before his death,--"I

believe that during the twenty-six years that I have practised my

profession in this city, twenty thousand children have been borne to the

cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of naked arms."

When in Harvard College, many years ago, I heard the eminent Dr. Warren

say,--"Boston sacrifices hundreds of babes every year by not clothing

their arms."

What has been said of the dress of children is none the less applicable

to the dress of adults. One of the gravest mistakes in the dress of

women is the very thin covering of their arms and legs. A young lady

once asked me what she could do for her very thin arms. She said she was

ashamed of them. I felt of them through the thin lace covering, and

found them freezing cold. I asked her what she supposed would make

muscles grow? Exercise, she replied. Certainly,--but exercise makes them

grow only by giving them more blood. Six months of vigorous exercise

will do less to give those cold, naked arms circulation than would a

single month, were they warmly clad.

The value of exercise depends upon the temperature of the muscles. A

cold gymnasium is unprofitable. Its temperature should be between sixty

and seventy, or the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know our

servant-girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigorous exercise,

acquire large, fine arms, in spite of their nakedness; and if our young

ladies will labor as hard from morning till night as do these useful

classes, they may have as fine arms; but even then it is doubtful if

they would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, and stomach,

without more dress upon the arms and legs.

Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. Every living thing that

has the latter has the former. Put your hand under your dress upon your

body. Now place it upon your arm. If you find the temperature of the

body over 90° and that of your arm under 60°, you have lost the

equilibrium of circulation. The head has too much blood, producing

headache; or the chest too much, producing cough, rapid breathing, pain

in the side, or palpitation of the heart; or the stomach too much,

producing indigestion. Any or all these difficulties are temporarily

relieved by immersion of the hands or feet in hot water, and permanently

relieved by such dress and exercise of the extremities as will make the

derivation permanent.

The most earnest efforts looking towards dress-reform have had reference

to the length of the skirt. I think it is one of woman's first duties to

make herself beautiful. The long skirt, the trail even, is in fine

taste. Among the dress features of the stage none is so beautiful. The

artist is ever delighted to introduce it in his pictures of woman. For

the drawing-room, it is superb. When we meet on dress occasions, I

cannot see why we may not introduce this exquisite feature. If it is

said that expense and inconvenience are involved, I reply, so they are

in paintings and statuary.

For church and afternoon-sittings, skirts that nearly touch the floor

seem to me in good taste; but for the street, when snowy or muddy, for

the active duties of house-keeping, for the gymnasium, and for

mountain-trips, it need not be argued, with those whose brains are not

befogged by fashion, that the skirts should fall to about the knee.

Dr. Clarke says,--"Since the free expansion of the chest, or, in other

words, the unimpeded action of the respiratory organs, is essential to

health, the employment of tight stays and those forms of dress which

interfere with these natural actions must be injurious, and cannot

therefore be too strongly censured."

The celebrated Dr. James Johnson declares,--"The growth of the whole

body and the freedom of all its functions so much depend upon perfect

digestion, that every impediment to that digestion, such as compression

of the middle of the body, must inevitably derange the whole

constitution. Although the evils of tight lacing are as patent as the

sun at noonday, I have never known its commission to be acknowledged by

any fair dame. It is considered essential to a fine figure, yet I never

could discover any marks of stays in the statues of the Medicean Venus,

or the Apollo. And I venture to aver that the Cyprian goddess was not in

the habit of drawing her zone as tight as the modern fair ones, else the

sculptor would have recorded the cincture in marble. The comfort and

motions of the foot are not more abridged and cramped by the Chinese

shoe than are respiration and digestion by the stay." Thus wrote the

physician to the father of the present queen of England.

A former professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the

university of Vermont says,--"Undue confinement of the chest must at all

periods of life be prejudicial; hence the practice of tight lacing we

almost always find classed among the causes of phthisis, as well as of

numerous other ills." And he adds,--"It is surely an erroneous notion

that women need the support of stays."