A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

muscles are left unemployed, they diminish in size and strength. The girding of tight dresses operates thus on the muscles of the body. If an article, like corsets, is made to hold up the body, then those muscles, which are designed for this purpose, are released from duty, and grow weak; so that, after this has been continued for some time, leaving off the unnatural support produces a feeling of weakness. Thus a person will complain of feeling so weak and unsupported, without corsets, as to be uncomfortable. This is entirely owing to the disuse of those muscles, which corsets throw out of employ. Another effect of tight dress, is, to stop or impede the office of the lungs. Unless the chest can expand, fully, and with perfect ease, a portion of the lungs is not filled with air, and thus the full purification of the blood is prevented. This movement of the lungs, when they are fully inflated, increases the peristaltic movement of the stomach and bowels, and promotes digestion; any constriction of the waist tends to impede this important operation, and indigestion, with all its attendant evils, is often the result. The rule of safety, in regard to the tightness of dress, is this. Every person should be dressed so loosely, that, _when sitting in the posture used in sewing, reading, or study_ THE LUNGS _can be as fully and as easily inflated, as they are without clothing_. Many a woman thinks she dresses loosely, because, when she stands up, her clothing does not confine her chest. This is not a fair test. It is in the position most used when engaged in common employments, that we are to judge of the constriction of dress. Let every woman, then, bear in mind, that, just so long as her dress and position oppose any resistance to the motion of her chest, in just such proportion her blood is unpurified, and her vital organs are debilitated. The English ladies set our countrywomen a good example, in accommodating their dress to times and seasons. The richest and noblest among them wear