SNEEZE AND KNEES.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 July 1918, Page 7

SNEEZE AND KNEES.

WHY WOMEN NEED SMALL HANDKERCHIEFS New York. A remarkable defence of the muchmaligned ‘women’s Fashions” from the health point of view is made by Dr. Walter B. Janies, in the Medical World. Dr. James finds that prevailing styles for women —open throats and short skirts —are conducive to health. “In spite of the absurdness of women’s dress,” says Dr. James, “colds and catarrh are for the most part maladies of the other sex, and pneuomnia and bronchitis are certainly no less common, and, indeed, are probably more common, in men than in women. In every family it is the man and hot the women who make whatever disagreeable throat and nose noises that are heard about the house, and the unmentionable spittoon; ys masculine and not feminine. “It is only necssary to note the size and character of the women’s handkerchief as compared with the man’s and the woman’s scanty need of it, except as a trinket, as compared with her husband’s slavish dependence upon it, to convince one that as far as the upper respiratory tract goes the so-called irrational dress of woman has few. if any, apologies to make. “The present form of abbreviated skirts has been attended with no increase in throat maladies among its devotees, and there is good reason to believe that as the daytime dress of the sex approaches more and mor» closely to that of the Scotch Highlander, so will they in their bodily vigor and resistance to the weather approach more and more closely to that most hearty and and vigorous of all people. “It is a question whether the raggedness and unkemptness of Washington’s heroic army during that melancholy winter at Valley Forge was not a better preparation for the spring encounter with an enemy more numerous and better equipped thatn them- j selves than would have been a cosy winter in a steam-heated cantonment clad in the, swaddling clothes of-the fighting man of the present day. “From the point of view of modern science,,” adds Dr. James, 1 clothing of the navy is far more rational tfia'n is that of the army, at least as far as the man of the line ins concerned The open front blouse and the bellbottomed trousers flapping in the wind secure at least a moderate exposure of some part of the body.”