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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
we would get rid of the evils which result from the present 
fashion of compressing the bust with stays or corsets. 
Every writer on Hygiene has unequivocally condemned this 
absurd custom, and there is no practitioner of medicine but 
has witnessed the destructive influence that the corset has on 
health. The compression produced by it diminishes the action 
of the lungs, and leads to those deposits which fatally 
destroy life in consumption, whilst the diminished activity and 
action of the body engendered, lays the foundation of those 
dyspeptic and nervous diseases to which the great mass 
of our middle and upper class females are liable. 
What is true of the head, neck, and body, is also true 
of the extremities. Any article of dress so fastened as 
to prevent a free return of the blood to the heart, congests the 
vessels below the part compressed. Bracelets, armlets, 
wristbands, and garters, may all be so worn as to produce 
painful affections of the limbs compressed. 
There is no member of the extremities which has been 
more disgracefully used than the foot. This wonderful organ, 
by the perfection of which God has “ made man upright-,” 
and whose structure so pre-eminently distinguishes him from 
his recently so called “ great-grandfather,” the Gorilla, has 
been made to suffer from compression more generally than 
any other organ. The thought at once suggests the cruel 
practice of the Chinese, who prevent the growth of the female 
foot, by placing it in infancy in an unyielding shoe. This 
fact has had the universal testimony of travellers, in China, 
and if anything more was wanted to prove it, a collection 
of the feet of Chinese women is at present to be seen in the 
Museum of the College of Surgeons of England, in which, by 
the careful dissections of Mr. Flower, the Curator, the sad 
havoc to natural growth produced by this heartless custom is 
scientifically demonstrated. 
The great object of the shoe is to protect the sole of 
the foot from the injury it is likely to sustain by the weight of 
the body pressing it against the irregularity of the surface of 
the earth. The sole of the shoe is therefore its chief use. It 
is, however, necessary to use some kind of strap or bandage 
to keep the sole upon the foot. The simplest form of foot 
dress in which this object is secured is the sandal, worn by the 
less-civilized nations of the earth, as well as the more ancient. 
It is found, however, that other objects may be accomplished 
by aid of the pressure necessary for keeping the sole on the 
foot, and coverings for the foot and leg have been attached to 
the sole; hence the modern boot and shoe. Hence also the 
suffering of the modern foot. The form of the boot and shoe 
has proved no exception to that love of the grotesque, which 
