Wearing Belts.

Evening Star, Issue 7484, 31 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Wearing Belts.

Costume is no unimportant factor, not only in athletics, but in everyday life also, and on the vexed question of belts the opinion of Dr B. W. Richardson will be listened to with respect, and, it is to be hoped, attention likewise. I give his exact words as taken from a paper read by him at the London Institution, to which my attention has been recently drawn by an English paper :—" There is another and more permanent injury of this kind, however, carried out by boys" and men, which consists in wearing a belt for the so-called purpose of giving what is called support. Boys who are about to run or leap put on the belt and strap it tightly in order, as they say, to hold in their wind or breath. Working men who are about to lift weights or carry heavy burdens put on a belt for the same purpose, their declaration bsing that it gives support. There is not a figment of truth in this belief. The belt impedes respiration, compresses the abdominal muscles, compresses the muscles of the back, subjecting them to unnecessary friction, and seriously impedes motion. I had a good working man in my employ who would undertake no vigorous effort until he had tightened his belt. Once I gothimto testwhat he couldlift with and without the belt, andhe was obliged to admit that he could do more without than with it. . . . Respecting this belt for boys and men there is a word more I must say which is of serious import. When they put on the belt for the sake of performing some feat of strength they effect dangerous mischief. Compressing the abdomen, they force during the exertion the abdominal cavity downwards under pressure, giving no chance to sesilience back again after the exertion of the shock. In this way they frequently cause hernia or rupture. I have seen professionally several instances of this occurrence in boys, and amongst workmen who wear belts this accidental disease is so common that it is the rule rather than the exception to find it present. . . . Another form of constriction in dress is that produced by the garter. . . . This is one cause of varicose veins sometimes an original cause, and always a serious impediment to recovery when, from any other reason, the enlarged or varicoso vein is already present. The ligature,, or band called the garter, is bad in any way, but it is far worse when it is worn below rather than above the knee; for the two tendons called the hamstrings receive tho pressure of a great portion of the bandage and act as bridges to the veins which pass beneath."