310 APPENDIX. 



Effects of stays on the size, vigor, and health of our 

 species. Besides the consequences ascribed to the 

 uses of stays, in the foregoing pages, there is another 

 effect to be noticed, which so far as we know has been 

 entirely overlooked, or at least unnoticed, by writers on 

 the subject of Physical Education ; but which the patri- 

 ot and philanthropist cannot but consider as highly im- 

 portant. We mean the effects of tight lacing on our 

 species in a national point of view. 



It has been shown in the preceding pages, that when 

 any portion of the animal system, and especially the soft 

 parts, are pressed, nature sets herself to work, and be- 

 cause she cannot remove the offending cause, avenges 

 herself of the insult, by removing through the absorbent 

 system, the parts pressed upon, and thus relieves her- 

 self of the injury. 



Now the glands, or organs which secrete the fluids pe- 

 culiar to the several parts of the system, are particular- 

 ly sensible to injuries of this kind ; and when they occur, 

 nature evinces her resentment by a speedy reduction, or 

 sometimes by the entire removal of the offended organ. 

 In case the gland happens to be one which nature in- 

 tended should be prominent, the continuance of the pres- 

 sure will either prevent its full development, or if al- 

 ready developed, will reduce it to the common level of 

 the surface where it is situated. These are well known 

 physiological facts, of which the physician in his prac- 

 tice, and the common observer in his observations, has 

 undoubtedly seen numerous instances. 



The class of animals, called Mammalia, as already ex- 

 plained, receives its name from the presence of certain 

 glands, called the lactescent, which are common to all 

 the species, and which are designed to secrete suste- 

 nance, for the continuance of the races to which they 

 severally give existence ; and without such an organiza- 

 tion, no tribe of animals can claim a place in the Natural 

 History arrangement of this most important division of 

 the Animal Kingdom. 



When this class was formed, the order called Bimana, 

 or two handed, of which order Man is the only species, 

 there was no want of those peculiar qualifications in our 

 race, which constitute membership in it ; but at the pres- 



