Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1891 — The Health of Our Women. [ARTICLE]

The Health of Our Women.

No woman admits that tight lacing Injures her; it is some other woman. The worship of fashion has become so Intense, and the appoaranco of'a rival’s sbiapp arotisos such a spirit of*-emula-tion, that our women continue to squeeze themselves in steel bands to such a degree that the functions of tho body cannot go on normally; and the long train of ills tight-lacers know so well, but the warnings of which they will not heed, ending in slow disease and final wr«ck. * Experience seems to teach the sufferers but little, aud the mothers are as ignorant ai tho daughters. Health is sacrificed for a spider’s wa st. Sc entitle doctors have been preaching against these evils time out of mind, -but the headway against them i 3 slow. The academies and colloges for women, however, are getting to be moro alive to the importance of tho pupil’s health. The bettor class of institutions are equipped with gymnasiums and provided with swimming pools and,other means for developing tho body and preventing tho health from breaking down. Tennis and other outdoor games aie growing in favor. For a girl nothing can take the place of exercise in tho open air; not merely,a walk of t a few blocks, but a good “constitutional” at a swinging gait, and that, too, without much reference to the weather. Tho girls of today will in a few years be mothers. Tho law of heredity is inexorab’e. Strong, healthy men and finciy developed, handBomo women are not boru of sickly, weak parents, whose blood, perhaps, suffers from the poison that can* bo traced back generations. Health is beauty, said tho old Greeks who lived In tho open air, and beauty is health.— Baltimore American