FASHION VERSUS HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 October 1908, Page 4

FASHION VERSUS HEALTH

SIOVERH REMARKS BY A DOCTOR.

[I'EII I'UKSS ASSOCIATION.]

(jriJUSTUHURGH, October 5. Fashion survives often in the most grotesque aiul ridiculous forms, in spite of all the doctors say, but that docs not prevent the medical profession persevering in the attack. The address on fashion v. health last night by J)r Trubv King at the animal meeting of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Chilrcn should have carried conviction to many of his hearers in the large audience, composed almost exclusively of women, hut it may be doubted whether femiine obedience to fashion's dictates was weakened to any extent. l)r King displayed (i photograph of the Venus doMilo. "There is a great difference between that perfect type of womanhood and the being of the fashion-plate," be remarked, "audit is a reflection on all of ns that no stand is taken against that which is not only decidedly harmful to the women of today, but is absolutely ruinous to the race. What artist would think of depicting the female form in the distorted shape we give it':" A series of fashion-plate photographs was shown to indicate that even the model had been unable to make her figure conform to the demands of fashion, and that the photographs had been afterwards "faked" in order to show fashionable women what to aspire to. "It is decreed," the speaker said, "that woman is not to have the form the Maker gave her." The fashions this year demand pressure and constriction upon other parts of the figure than were constricted last year. Nothing would be moro idiotic than' the constant effort to folow the kaleisdoscopic changes. The doctor also dealt with the distortion of the feet by fashionable boots and shoes. He cited a case in which a woman had been crippled from this cause. Sim was unable to take exercise, and developed dyspepsia and an exceedingly pessimistic disposition, so much so indeed that her husband left her. "I am persuaded," Dr King added, "that if that woman had not distorted her feet her husband wmihl Jmv« limn with )w u>* rhijv'