410 



Professor Flower 



[May 7, 



among people who boast of the highest civilization to which the world 

 has yet attained. 



But when, in spite of all the warnings of common sense and 

 experience,* we continue to torture and deform our horses' mouths 

 and necks, with tight bearing reins, as injurious, as useless, and as 

 ugly, as any of these customs we practise on ourselves, and all for 

 no better reason, we may well say with Dr. Johnson, " few enterprises 

 are so hopeless as a contest with fashion." 



I must speak last upon one of the most remarkable of all the 

 artificial deformities produced by adherence to a conventional standard, 

 and one which comes very near home to many of us. 



Fig. 17. 



Fig. 18. 



Torso of the Statue of Venus of Milo. Paris Fashion, May, 1880. 



It is no part of the object of the present discourse to give a 

 medical disquisition upon the evils of tight-lacing, though much 

 might be said of the extraordinary and permanent change of form and 

 relative position produced by it, not only on the bony and cartila- 

 ginous framework of the chest, but also in the most important organs 

 of life contained within it, changes far more serious in their effects 

 than those of the Chinook's skull and brain, or the Chinese woman's 

 foot. It is only necessary to compare these two figures (Figs. 17 



* See * Bits and Bearing Reins,' by Edward Fordham Flower. Cassell and 

 Co., 1879. 



