350 FASHION IN DEFORMITY xx 



Of all parts of the body, the elastic and mobile walls of 

 the chest would seem most to need preservation from external 

 constriction, if they are to perform efficiently the important 

 purposes for which their peculiar structure is specially designed. 

 The skull is a solid case, with tolerably uniform walls, the 

 capacity of which remains the same, whatever alteration is 

 made in its shape. Pressure on one part is compensated for 

 by dilatation elsewhere ; the body is not so, it may be compared 



FIG. 32. FIG. 33. 



Torso of the statue of Venus of Milo. Paris fashion, May 1880. 



to a cylinder with a fixed length, determined by the vertebral 

 column, and closed above and below by a framework of bone. 

 Circular compression then must actually diminish the area 

 which has to be occupied by some of the most important vital 

 organs. Moreover, the framework of the chest is a most 

 admirable and complex arrangement of numerous pieces of 

 solid bone and elastic cartilage, jointed together in such a 

 manner as to allow of expansion and contraction for the 

 purposes of respiration expansion and contraction which, if a 



