Page 2 Advertisements Column 1

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 15 May 1914, Page 2

Lung Diseas Cured by the Corset. — 9 IT HAS SAVED MORE WO.MIiN THAN IT HAS KILLED. Some of Germany's best scientific men protest that the charges against the corset are baseless. It is, we are assured, the saviour every year of hundreds of thousands of lives. Professors Hirschfold and Loewy say that consumption most easily develops among men and women with "paralytic" chests. That means a long and fat thorax, or chest cavity. The number of such »is enormous. When they have not got consumption they run a risk ten times greater of getting it than the risk of persons with well-de-veloped chests. The professors first observed, that when women of such build take to wearing corsets, the thorax begins to develop in a favourable direction. This is especially true of the upper part of the thorax. This observation led to a prolonged series of scientific tests. With the aid of " air-clocks," the professors set about measuring : (1) the frequency of breathing with and without a corset ; (2) the volume of air in each breath ; and (3) the total volume of air breathed in and out in a fixed space of time. According to theory, the corset wearers should breathe less. Rather the opposite is the case, our authorities say. They add that the corset does cause a very slight flattening in the operation of taking breath. But this is compensated for by increased frequency of breathing. The amount of air taken into the lungs with and without a corset is precisely the same. But the manner of breathing is more favourable when the corset is worn. The professors investigated by means of Roentgen rays the movements of chest, lungs and diaphragm. The result is favourable to the corset. The corset causes a-spe-cially strong motion and development of the upper part of the chest, and thus'strengthens the upper parts of the lungs. In people with the " paralytic " type of chest, it is the upper parts of the lungs which work badly, and cause risk of consumption. For all such persons the corset is a good disease preventive. Women whose physical construction causes dread of lung disease should therefore wear the corset. And the same is true of men. Only when the apexes of the lungs are already diseased should the corset be abandoned, i In that case the affected parts need to be rested and not developed. The ! corset is the great developer, and that is why it is the protector of the sound from disease. '

A minister, who was not averse to an occasional toddy, hired an Irishman to clean out his cellar. Pat soon discovered a multitude of empty bottles, and hope repeated its speciality of springing- eternal in the human breast. As lie was carefully examining each bottle by holding it to the light, the minister saw him, and called out :— "They are all dead ones, Pat." "They are, are they ?" replied the Irishman. "Well, there's one good thing about it, they all had the minister with them when they were dying." 1393.