The long-waisted woman and her movable kidney / by A. Ernest Gallant.

  • Gallant, A. Ernest.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The long-waisted woman and her movable kidney / by A. Ernest Gallant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    / THE LONG-WAISTRD WOMAN AND HER MOVABLE KIDNEY* In 1902, the writer after carefully studying sev- eral hundred cases of splanchnoptosia, in a clin- ical lecture before the New York School of Clinical Medicine,1 gave expression to the “de- velopmental theory” of that disorder in the follow- ing terms: “At puberty, when the girl is rapidly increasing in stature, and her menses begin to drain the system, relentless custom adds to the enormous strain by interdicting skipping, run- ning, and jumping. Healthful exercise may no longer be indulged in; she must be compressed within a corset; her clothing no longer suspended from the shoulders, but hung from the waist by tightly drawn bands, and the light, short skirts are exchanged for long, heavy, trailing dresses; yet we wonder that the health of the young girl breaks down when thus hampered, haltered, and harnessed. Ere long the plump, rosy-cheeked, vivacious girl becomes the sedate miss—anemic, dyspeptic, constipated, nervous, restless, sleep- less; and her parents wonder why, fearing that the heretofore lovely girl is about to be carried off by consumption.” This change we believe to be brought about in ♦Read by invitation at the annual meeting of the Suffolk County Medical Society, held April 25, 1907, at Patchogue. By A. ERNEST GALLANT, M.D., NEW YORK. L. I. Copyright, William Wood & Company