PREVENTION OF SPINAL DISTORTION. 311 



ent time, this order, at least in many parts of our coun- 

 try, has lost, in a lamentable degree, and in some speci- 

 mens entirely, those marks by which its individuals once 

 claimed aprominent rank among Mammiferous animals. 

 And if the use of stays, corsets, steel busks, and their ad- 

 juvants, continue to inflict their marks on future genera- 

 tions, as they do on the present, the order Bimana will 

 undoubtedly deserve to lose its place in the Mammalia 

 class : since there will ensue an entire extinction of those 

 natural organs, which form the chief characteristic of 

 this class, and from which its name is derived. 



The loss of membership among the Mammalia, it is 

 true, is of little importance, except to the naturalist ; but 

 to the patriot, and moralist, the extinction of those prom- 

 inent traits which once distinguished the gender of our 

 species, cannot but create feelings of commisseration, 

 and regret, since such a deformity not only involves a 

 violation of the laws of nature and morality ; the first by 

 suppressing the growth of important parts of the animal 

 system, and the second by the hazard of health and life 

 as a consequence ; but it also inevitably leads to a dete- 

 rioration of the species, with respect to statue, form and 

 constitution. 



It is true that stays are no recent invention, having 

 been known to the nations of Europe before our fathers 

 and mothers came to these shores ; and therefore it per- 

 haps may be objected that the consequences we have 

 attributed to them, may with the same probability have 

 happened formerly as now. But the construction of 

 this article of dress, though called by the same name, is 

 materially different from what it formerly was, as any 

 one may convince herself by hunting up, and examining 

 those worn by her grandmother. These will be found 

 so constructed, as not in the least to interfere with the 

 expansion of the upper half of the bust ; while those of 

 the present day, it may be presumed from the forms 

 moulded into them, are so made as either to present a 

 barrier of whale bone, and steel, to any unequal expan- 

 sion of the parts which they encompass $ or if any such 

 provision is allowed, it must be rather in the region of 

 the shoulder blades, than in that of the anterior portion of 

 the bust. 



