1884.] 
The Health Exhibition. 
413 
unsanitary. But it had this defeat, not in virtue of the 
style of architecture then in vogue, but by reason of the 
narrowness of the streets, the absence of drainage, the pre- 
sence of cesspools within doors, and the dirty habits of the 
inmates. Supposing all these drawbacks removed, there is 
no reason why houses constructed as in the specimens before 
us should not be, to say the least, as favourable to health as 
the most monotonous row of villas or “ desirable residences ” 
ever run up by a modern jerry-building speculator. 
The “ Journal of Science ” is not an organ of art, and we 
have therefore no call to enlarge on the superior esthetic 
character of these dwellings of our forefathers. But we 
may at least ask whether the increasing monotony or uni- 
formity of our domestic architecture and of our modern 
costumes is not evidence of decreasing specialisation in 
modern life ? We know that this view is not in accordance 
with the teachings of so eminent an authority as Mr. 
Herbert Spencer ; but we fear it is borne out by faCts of 
many kinds. 
In our last notice of the Exhibition we regretted the 
apparent absence of models showing the evils due to the sin 
of tight lacing and to the use of high-heeled boots. We 
are glad to own ourselves mistaken. There are models, in 
plaster, of the liver of a healthy woman and of the same 
organ in a wasp-waisted votary of fashion. Along with 
them are models of the feet of wearers of high-heeled, 
narrow-toed boots, as compared with the normal female foot. 
The crippled and distorted members are, in good sooth, 
ugly to the very verge of repulsiveness. But what must we 
think of a writer who seeks to argue that these self-infliCted 
deformities are at bottom the fault of the male sex, and 
especially of “ man doctors ” ? Yet the writer even con- 
tends that such absurdities would vanish if ladies would 
exclusively consult medical women ! Our acquaintance with 
the profession has been somewhat extensive, but we never 
met with a medical man who did not protest against tight- 
lacing and other vagaries of fashion, and who did not carry 
his remonstrances to the point of occasionally offending 
foolish lady-patients. The notion that ladies dress to please 
men we have often heard utterly scouted by the fair sex, as 
simply a “ piece of masculine conceit.” Nor do we believe 
that the normal man, of any grade of culture, admires 
debility in woman, even if it is wrapped up in the deceitful 
term “ delicacy.” When he does it is a sign that whole- 
some instincfts, which may be traced far down the zoological 
series, have been eliminated from his nature by mistraining 
and morbid public opinion. 
