Volume 1

The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others].

Date:
1908-1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    405/430 (page 371)
    Dreai All these innovations would diminish the weight of the dress without impairing its warming effect. Closed drawers possess obvious advantages over the undergarments formerly in use, es])ecially with reference to keeping warm. Stockings should not be fastened by round garters over the calves, but should be attached by aid of hose supporters to the corset substitute ; otherwise, in consecpience of constriction of the blood-vessels, the garters are apt to cause congestion of blood in the legs (varicose veins). In a rational dress for women, at least the street dress should not reach down further than to the shoe tops. Apart from the comfort of the wearer. sanitary view-points are determining in this respect. Trailing skirts whirl up the dust, which is generally looked upon as something injurious to health, as it is conducive to a dissemination of disease-germs (especially tubercu- losis) which may enter the respiratory organs. A livel)' agitation against allowing the wearing of trailing skirts in the streets has therefore become manifest in many places ; and it has been sug- gested to abolish the nuisance by local bye-laws. Conceive the amount of hlth brought into the house by the edge of the skirt of a fashionable lady ! Ought net the sense of cleanliness alone —quite apart from all hygienic considerations—to object to this nuisance ? These are the principal points in which women sin with regard to their dress. Two others, less important ones, may be brielly mentioned. While nowhere else the outer garments (which as a rule are not washable) are worn near the bare skin, the blouse is worn day after day over the bare arms and neck, and the upper part of the breast. The necessary Fig. ho. ideal mode of dress. Fig. 109. Practical combination-suit.