"Fashion and Vice.-Let us glance at the second manner n which dress lends its influence to vice, by obstructing the normal functions of the body. 1. Fashion requires a woman to compress her waist with bands or corsets. In consequence, the circulation of the blood toward the heart is obstructed. The venous blood is crowded back into the delicate organs of generation. Congestion ensures, and with it, through reflect action, the unnatural excitement of the animal propensities. 2. The manner of wearing the clothing, suspending several heavy garments from the hips, increases the same difficulty by bringing too large a share of clothing where it is least needed, thus generating unnatural local heat. 3. The custom of clothing the feet and limbs so thinly that they are exposed to constant chilling, by still further unbalancing the circulation, adds another element to increase the local mischief. All of these causes bombined, operating almost constantly,-with others that might be mentioned,-produce permanent local congestions, with ovarian and uterine derangements. The latter affections have long been recognized as the chief pathological condition in hysteria, and especially in that peculiar form o disease known as “nymphomania”, under the excitement of which a young woman, naturally chaste and modest, may be impelled to the commission of the most wanton acts. The pernicious influence of fashionable dress in occasioning this disorder cannot be doubted."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

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pp.192-193

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg