What a Young Woman Ought to Know Part 2

We realize the importance of eating, but we can live days without food. On the other hand, we cannot live many seconds entirely without air. We must infer from all this that breathing is more important than eating. How can it be? From our food our body is rebuilt. What life-process is accomplished by breathing?

To understand this, we must learn what processes are going on in the body, by means of which food is converted into tissue, into heat and energy. These processes we find are chemical, and may be likened to the combustion of wood or coal in the furnace. We know that fire must have air in order to burn. Burning is the process of oxidation or combustion of oxygen with the atoms of fuel and the formation of a new substance thereby. Coal, we are told, consists of carbon and nitrogen, both of which readily combine with oxygen, and in the process of uniting heat is liberated, and waste compounds thus formed pa.s.s off through the smokestack or chimney. We may not understand this scientifically, but we know that if we want the fire to burn well we must give it draft or air.

Our bodies are living engines, and use food and air instead of coal and air. Food in the body without air is like the coal in an engine without air; and air is useful only because it brings oxygen to unite chemically with the food. This process is going on all over the body.

Each little microscopical cell is a furnace in which oxidation is taking place; and not only is energy liberated, but reconstructive processes are going on, new tissues are being formed, and old tissues removed.

But how can the oxygen get to the cells in all parts of the body? We can readily see how it gets to the air-cells of the lungs, but it would do little good if it stopped there. It must be carried in some way to all the minutest cells of all the tissues. This is done through the breathing. The blood goes to the lungs, and there it gives out the waste material it has collected in its journey through the body and takes up oxygen. The blood goes to the lungs dark in color from its load of waste. It is changed to a bright red by taking up oxygen. Each red blood-corpuscle takes a load of oxygen, carries it to its destination, and gives it to some tissue to be used up in the chemical process of oxidation, upon which depends our life and energy. During the hours of rest the tissues are busy in this process, and during exercise the energy stored up in the tissue-cells is liberated and waste created. So we see that the process is a continual round of taking food and air, using them in rebuilding tissue, then using up the tissue by exercise and casting out the waste products. And now we can begin to understand that we live in proportion as we breathe. Dr.

Holbrook says: "The activity of the child is in close relation to the strength of its lungs; so, too, is the calmness, dignity and power of a man in proportion to the depth and tranquility of his respiration.

If the lungs are strong and active, there is courage and boldness; if feeble, there is cowardice and debility. To be out of spirits is to be out of breath. To be animated and joyous is to be full of breath."

"Breathing," writes Dr. von der Deeken, "is an actual vivifying act, and the need of breath as felt is a real life-hunger and a proof that without the continual charging of the blood-column with the proper force, all the other vital organs would soon stagnate and cease action altogether."

Now I wonder how many young women really know how to breathe. "Why,"

you say, "we have always breathed!" And I reply, "So you have, to some extent; but do you really breathe, or do you just let a little current of air flow gently through a part of your lungs, not reaching the minute air-cells at all, or have you crippled a large part of your lung-power by the restrictions of tight clothing?" Now you shrug your shoulders and say, with a little irritation, perhaps, "O, now she is going to scold about corsets and tight-lacing, and I do not wear my clothes tight." But I am not now going to talk of lacing; I am going to talk about singing, and speaking, and real living. The highest cla.s.s of living creatures are those that have most power to breathe.

The cold-blooded animals breathe little, and are slow-moving creatures with deficient sensation and small powers of action. Man has large lung-capacity and should be full of life and power, and will be, if he understands himself. One benefit of exercise is the added impulse given to the heart and lungs, calling for more breath, and bringing more blood to the lungs to receive the added supply of oxygen.

If we were wise we would practise the art of deep, voluntary breathing, as a daily form of gymnastics. What would it do for us?

Wonderful things, if we may believe the doctors. Even in the old Greek and Roman times the doctors recommended deep breathing, the voluntary holding of air in the lungs, believing that this exercise cleansed the system of impurities and gave strength. And all our scientific discoverers have proven that they were right, and modern doctors have only learned more of the process and added to the wisdom of the ancients. Professor Lehwess says that he uses deep breathing not only as a health remedy but as a cure for muscular convulsions, especially chronic spasms; and he says that he bases his method for the cure of stuttering mainly upon respiratory and vocal exercises, "whereby," he says, "we work on enervated muscles, and make their function bring them into permanent activity and make them obedient to our will." Thus not only will the respiratory system be enlarged and quickened, and the lungs strengthened, but the blood circulation is promoted and those injurious influences overcome which often take away the stutterer's courage for speaking.

Dr. Niemeyer, of Leipzig, urges breathing in these words: "Prize air; use good, pure air; breathe fresh air in your room by night and day."

Dr. Bicking says that respiratory gymnastics are the only effectual remedy for pulmonary affection, especially for consumption. The Marquise Ciccolina claims that by the teaching of breathing gymnastics she has cured people of a tendency to take cold easily; she has benefited cases of lung and heart trouble, and she has cured nervous asthma even in cases that have lasted from childhood to maturity. Dr.

Kitchen a.s.serts that if the various structures of the body, including the lungs, are in a sufficiently healthy state, consumption cannot find a soil in which to commence its ravages, or, if already commenced, can be cured by attention to the general health, by pure air and deep breathing.

All this proves that the breathing is of great importance--of just as much importance to women as to men. It used to be thought that women breathe naturally with the upper part of the chest and men with the abdominal muscles, but we have now learned that in the breathing of both men and women the diaphragm should be used and the lower part of the chest expanded. The breathing should neither be thoracic--that is, with the upper part of the chest--nor abdominal. It should be diaphragmatic; that is, with the expansion of the sides of the lower part of the chest, thus filling every air-cell and bringing the life-giving oxygen to the blood. The importance of the diaphragm as the breathing muscle cannot be overestimated. A diaphragm, you know, is a part.i.tion across a cylinder; the diaphragm is a muscular part.i.tion across the cylinder of the body, dividing the lungs from the abdomen. In breathing, the diaphragm becomes tense, and in becoming tense becomes also flattened, just as an umbrella does by being opened. In fact the opening and shutting of an umbrella gives a very good idea of the motion of the diaphragm in breathing. We can realize, then, how much larger around the body will be when the lungs are fully inflated than it is when we breathe the air out and the lungs are empty. A few minutes spent each day in exercising in diaphragmatic breathing would be of great advantage in increasing beauty of form, in giving strength and power to the voice, in improving the complexion and adding to the health, and therefore to the happiness. In taking these exercises, one should either stand erect or lie flat upon the back and draw the air in through the nose, keeping the mouth closed.

Draw in gently, allowing the chest to expand at the sides, hold the air for a little time, and then breathe out slowly.

These exercises performed in a room that is well ventilated, or, better still, in the pure air of outdoors, will do much toward driving away headaches, clearing the brain, giving better judgment, stronger will, and a clearer, happier, brighter disposition.

CHAPTER VI.

HINDRANCES TO BREATHING.

This little conversation will be on the hindrances to deep breathing, for if we make up our minds that it is so important to breathe deeply we shall be very anxious to know how to avoid the hindrances to deep breathing. First, let me speak of att.i.tude. If you study physiology and note the arrangement of the internal organs, you will very easily see that when the body is compressed in a sitting att.i.tude there must be a hindrance to full and deep breathing. The girl who is running the typewriter or the sewing-machine, or the girl who is working as bookkeeper or stenographer, or the girl at her studies, is sitting so that it will not be possible to breathe deeply, for the lungs are encroached upon by the crowding together of the other _viscera_ (which means the vital organs) and the action of the breathing muscles is impeded by compression. As you will readily observe, there can be no lifting of the chest in this compressed att.i.tude, no complete flattening of the diaphragm, no full inflation of the minute air-cells; therefore, as we have learned, the blood is not thoroughly purified, and actual poisons created by the vital processes acc.u.mulate in the brain and tissues until you feel overpoweringly weary and stupid. You cannot think, because you cannot fully breathe.

You have often found, when sewing, that the machine would get, as you say, bewitched. It wouldn't feed, the thread would break or the needle would snap, and the whole work go wrong. Put the machine away, take a rest, and the next day, without doing anything at all to the machine, you find that it runs perfectly. The trouble was with yourself. It is so with the girl who is running the typewriter. She finds that it makes mistakes in spelling, things go wrong altogether. It "acts up,"

as she would say. So with the girl who is bookkeeper. The figures will not add themselves up right. Now if, under these circ.u.mstances, the girl would get up, go to the door, take a few deep breaths and expand the lungs fully, she would relieve the internal congestion consequent upon the cramped position, the brain would be freed from the acc.u.mulated poison, and as a consequence the troublesome problems would soon be solved, the typewriter would spell correctly, the figures would add themselves up accurately, and life would become brighter at once. Five minutes spent each hour in deep breathing of pure air would add both to the quality and quant.i.ty of work done, and so be a saving of time. This certainly is of great value to you in your work in the world.

After working-hours are over, the girl should make a special effort to sit erect for other reasons than that of breathing, though that is reason enough.

But wrong sitting-postures are not the only att.i.tudes that interfere with deep breathing. Very often the position in standing is also objectionable. When one stands with the weight resting on the heels the body is thrown out of balance, and as a consequence the shoulders are not on a vertical line with the hips. In this att.i.tude it is impossible to manifest fullness of life, because the lungs are not fully inflated with air at each breath. We live, enjoy, accomplish only in proportion to our breathing ability. As one writer says, "The deep thinker, the orator, the fine singer, must of necessity be a good breather."

The most serious hindrance to deep breathing is found in the restrictions of the clothing. I do not say of the corsets, because tight bands or waists can also compress the body and make full breathing impossible. Of course you say your dresses are loose, and you run your hand up under your waist to prove it to me. I will not argue the question with you, but I will ask you to argue it with yourself.

If breathing is the measure of your living and doing, then if, in the least degree, you limit by your dress your breathing, the dress is too tight. "Well," you ask "how shall I know if I am hindering my breathing? My dress feels comfortable. It seems to me that I breathe.

Is there any way that I can prove whether my dress is tight or not?"

It is true that one becomes accustomed to uncomfortable things and scarcely realizes that they ever were uncomfortable. The dress may seem a little tight when you first put it on, then it begins to grow comfortable, and after a while it feels loose, and you say it certainly is loose. I will give a simple rule by which you may know whether your clothing is loose enough or not. Unfasten every article of clothing; dress, corset, skirt-bands, everything. Now breathe in slowly until every air-cell is full. It may take some practice to do this, but persevere until you find the chest elevated and filled to its utmost extent. It should swell out at the sides along the line of the insertion of the diaphragm. There should be no heaving of the chest. Now, with the lungs so completely filled with air, bring your dress waist together without pulling a particle. Will it fasten without pressing out a bit of air from the lungs? If so, it is loose enough. If, however, you have to pull it together, even to the tiniest extent, you have pressed out some of the air. The minute air-cells that have thus been emptied cannot be again filled while the dress is fastened. Therefore you are defrauded of your rightful amount of air, and because part of the air is pressed out, the lungs take less s.p.a.ce and the dress seems looser. You can understand how that would be.

The trouble is that our dresses are usually fitted over empty lungs.

The dressmaker pulls the dress together, squeezes the air out of the lungs, and fastens the dress. Now you can readily understand that it will be impossible to fill those air-cells so long as the dress is worn, and yet it may not seem uncomfortable, because we become accustomed to it. Nature has made us so that we can accustom ourselves to many things that are not absolutely healthful, but this should not make us willing to live unhealthfully when it is possible to avoid it.

CHAPTER VII.

ADDED INJURIES FROM TIGHT CLOTHING.

We have talked of the effect of tight clothing upon the breathing power. Let us see what other injuries arise from wearing the dress too tight. In the first place, the action of the heart is impeded. The heart is a hollow muscle which must be continually filled with blood and emptied again many times a minute from the moment of birth till the moment of death. You have been lying down for an hour; let me count your pulse. Now sit up for a few moments. I find, now, that it beats faster. Now stand up, and it beats still faster. You see, it increases continually as you get into the erect position. Now walk quickly across the floor and you will see how much it has increased again in rapidity.

You will realize how much the dress interferes with the action of the heart better from an ill.u.s.tration. Professor Sargent made an experiment with a number of girls. One day they were dressed in perfectly loose clothing. He counted the pulse of each. It beat on the average of eighty-four times in a minute. He had them run five hundred and forty yards in the s.p.a.ce of two and a half minutes. The pulse was again counted. It had increased to one hundred and fifty-six beats in a minute. This ill.u.s.trates the effect of exercise even in loose clothing. The next day at the same time, dressed with a corset which reduced the waist to twenty-four inches, they ran the same distance in the same length of time, and then he found that the pulse had run up to one hundred and sixty-eight beats in a minute, showing how much harder it was for the heart to do its work when restricted by tight clothing. No acrobat would attempt to perform feats of strength or of agility if restricted even so much as by a belt.

The Russian Government has issued an edict that the soldiers must wear their pantaloons held up by suspenders, for it has been demonstrated that when they wear them supported by a belt around the waist they are not able to do a fair amount of work. The Austrian Government has also decreed that the pantaloons of soldiers are not to be suspended by belts because of the increase of kidney difficulty caused thereby.

We will understand why kidney difficulty is caused by tight clothing when we study the location of the kidneys and how they are affected by compression of the ribs. Most people think the kidneys lie low down in the back, but in reality they lie up under the short ribs, and the pressure of tight clothing brings the ribs to bear directly upon the kidneys, injuring them in such a way as often to cause disease.

The heart and lungs are protected by a bony framework called the thorax, but below the thorax there is no protection for the internal organs except that of the muscles, therefore the corset or tight clothing can do most damage to the vital organs below the diaphragm.

The largest of these is the liver. It should lie close up under the diaphragm, from which it is suspended. Under the influence of tight clothing it is often pressed over on the right side, sometimes extending over the whole front of the body, or even as low down as the navel. It is rutted by the pressure of the ribs. The corset liver is well known in the dissecting-room. Sometimes, where corsets are not worn and tight skirts are worn, supported by the hips, the liver has almost been cut in two, the pieces being only held together by a sufficient band of tissue to keep them from dying.

When Hiram Powers, the great sculptor, was in this country, he once attended an elegant party, and was observed watching very intently a beautifully dressed, fashionable woman. A friend, noticing his interest, said to him, "What an elegant figure she has, hasn't she?"

"Well," said Powers, "I was wondering where she put her liver."

You see, Powers had studied the human body, and when he saw such an outline as the figure of a fashionable woman, he knew that some internal organ must be displaced in order to create that tapering waist, and his anxiety was for the internal organs. As an artist he did not admire the tapering waist, as is shown by the beautiful marble statue which he made. No artist would perpetuate in marble the figure of the fashionable woman.

Not only is the liver thus displaced, but the stomach is often pressed out of its original position, which should be also close up under the diaphragm, towards the left side. By the pressure of clothing it is sometimes pushed down until it lies in the abdominal cavity, even as low down as the navel. This is the statement of Dr. J.H. Kellogg, who, in his sanitarium at Battle Creek, examines hundreds, or even thousands of women in a year, and a.s.serts that it is almost impossible to find a woman whose stomach is where it belongs. This is a serious matter, because no organ can do its work properly when it is out of its rightful position. We understand this in any machinery except that of the human body. We would not meddle with a man-made machine because that would hinder its perfect working, but we do not hesitate to interfere with the body, forgetful that it, too, is a machine, divinely created, and with powers most fateful to us for weal or woe.

But the harm is not all done by the displacement of the organs mentioned. The bowels suffer, and we can best understand what is done to them when we understand how they are placed in the abdominal cavity.

Let me take the ruffle you are making. The mesentery is a delicate, narrow membrane about twenty feet long. We will compare it to the ruffle. Folded in it at one edge are the small intestines, just as I can run this bodkin into the hem of this ruffle. The other edge of the mesentery is gathered up as you have gathered the ruffle. It is gathered into a s.p.a.ce of about six inches in length, and is fastened up and down the spine in the region of the small of the back. You can see, if I gather up twenty feet of this ruffle into a s.p.a.ce of six inches, how the mesentery, with the intestines folded in the free edge, are held in the abdominal cavity. They are held loosely, and at the same time so that the intestines cannot be tied in knots or loops upon each other. In this way the ruffle flares out into the abdominal cavity. The intestines should stay in their place close up under the liver and stomach, but if pressure is brought to bear around the body at this point, the bowels begin to sag into the abdominal cavity. The abdominal walls lose their tonicity because they are so compressed that they cannot have a perfect circulation, the bowels sink down still further into the pelvis, and pull upon their attachment in the small of the back, creating backache. The stomach sags down into the cavity; the liver sinks, and all the organs pull upon their attachments; so it is no wonder that women have backaches and headaches, and their eyes feel bad, and they are unable to stand or walk. We don't want small rooms in our dwelling-houses, we don't like it if we haven't sufficient s.p.a.ce for our furniture; but in this bodily house in which we dwell we are quite willing to constrict the rooms in which the vital organs or furniture are placed, until everything is huddled together in the closest pressure, so that the organs are unable to do their work. It wouldn't matter in our parlors if the chairs and tables were huddled close together, for they are not constantly changing in size, but it does matter in a room where machines must have s.p.a.ce to work and such s.p.a.ce is not permitted them; and we cannot expect good work where we crowd machinery so that it does not have adequate room.

The influence of tight clothing upon the pelvic organs is to displace them and create a great many difficulties which we know as "Female Diseases." But these, in my opinion, are not the most important things. The important things are the displacement of the vital organs of the body--those organs without which we cannot live, and those organs the perfect working of which is necessary both to our health and our happiness. If we are wise we will be exceedingly anxious that every vital organ shall be allowed to hold its own position, to do its own work, with plenty of room.

The impeding of the heart-action by tight clothing is not in itself the most serious effect of this restriction. The serious trouble is in the disturbance of the circulation. Upon a perfect circulation depends perfect nutrition. The blood must go in sufficient quant.i.ty to every organ in order that it may be fully nourished. When the waist is compressed the organs do not receive their full amount of blood. It is retained, and therefore the organs are congested. The feet are cold because the blood does not reach them in sufficient quant.i.ty, and the brain, it may be, is hot, because the blood is not taken from the head with enough rapidity and furnished to the other organs. So we find that tight clothing interferes with the integrity and health of every organ in the body, and consequently with our happiness and with our usefulness.

The reason we admire the tapering waist is because we have been wrongly educated. We have acquired wrong ideas of beauty. We have accepted the ideals of the fashion-plate rather than those of the Creator. We find that some form of physical deformity maintains in almost every country. The Chinese deform the feet, and we think this is barbarous, but it is really not as serious as the deforming of the vital parts of the body. The Flathead Indian is deformed in babyhood by being compressed between boards until the head changes its shape.

Among some savage nations the leg is bandaged for a few inches above the ankle and for a few inches below the knee and the central part is allowed to expand as it will, and this deformity to them const.i.tutes beauty. Among other nations, holes are made in the ears and pieces of wood are inserted. The size of these pieces is gradually increased until the lobe of the ear will hang down upon the shoulder and a piece of wood as large as a man's arm be worn in the ears. All of these things seem to us most horrible; yet, after all, they are not as much an insult to the Divine Architect of the body as the deformity practised by civilized and so-called Christian people, who by restriction of the waist interfere with the vital organs and prevent the body from being perfect in its development, or perfect in its action. The activity of the body is an evidence of its life, and if it is so tied up that it cannot be active, it certainly is not in the fullest condition of life.

CHAPTER VIII.

EXERCISE.