The evil effects of tight lacing have been discussed and demonstrated well nigh ad nauseam, though the exhortations to reform have not so far received the amount of attention from the fair sex that their importance and the persistence of the reformers would warrant. It has fallen to Dr. Lauder Brunton to afford a further demonstration of the pernicious effects of this practice, in a way at once original and somewhat entertaining.
A CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK.
In the course of the investigations carried out by him, in conjunction with his colleagues of the Hyderabad Commission, on the vexed and highly technical question of chloroform versus ether, it occurred to him to try what effect a mode of dress which was likely to interfere with respiration would have in causing sudden death under an anaesthetic. The experiments were carried out on female monkeys. A monkey belonging to this sex was enveloped in a plaster of Paris jacket to imitate stays, and a tight bandage was then tied around the abdomen so as to imitate the band which would sustain the petticoats. It is with mingled feelings of curiosity and sympathy that we learn of the result of the experiments, which is reported to have been “very marked indeed,” so much so, that several of the monkeys died very quickly.
Dr. Brunton added that the survival of some of the animals experimented upon was probably due to the fact that the diaphragm is able to compensate to a large extent for the enforced loss of chest movement; nevertheless, if our lady friends do not take this lesson to heart, and learn from the fate of these tight-laced monkeys how serious a thing it is to handicap nature in the endeavor to simulate the graceful outline of the wasp, the medical philanthropist may well despair of ever being able to bring reason to bear on dress.—London Medical Press.
