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The Vapours (From Corsets)

GNC

King-Sized Canary
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Aug 25, 2001
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In the Mythconceptions column of FT 383 there's a reader query, did Victorian women really faint because their corsets were too tight, or is it a myth? I don't know how you would test this, I've heard the story for years but now I think of it, not from anything contemporary to the Victorians. So did those delicate flowers really get the vapours?
 
So did those delicate flowers really get the vapours?

The term was a catch-all one, which seemed to encompass most kinds of "female problem" real and imagined.

In books and dramas, the idea was often expressed by fainting, which may have been a lot more acceptable than more gross symptoms. I suspect, in the public mind, the vapours were to be relieved by more vapours from "smelling-salts."

I think you can still buy these. It's a while since I had a sniff of the spirits of ammonia. It would awaken the dead!

Tight-lacing would affect the diaphragm, I think, leading to shallow-breathing and oxygen starvation. :pop:
 
I think they did faint, or at least get woozy when they first started wearing them, pushing all your internal organs together could not have been a good idea
 
They were a real thing, and the scene in GWTW about young women making their waists tiny was based on reality, so yes they really did faint from decreased lung capacity and the compression of the innards could"t have been good. Might have been an endurance test. Corsets are still in use by the vain of both sexes.
 
I have just done a quick search on drug use during the Victorian era so am also very wondering if the liberal use of opium, cocaine and other substances (which affect breathing and heart rate) may have an impact on the corset wearer.
 
I can thoroughly recommend Inside the Victorian Home by Judith Flanders. Her contention is that the effect of the corset was worsened by the lack of available oxygen in your average room: the combustion of open fires and gas lamps/oil lamps/candles would consume enough of this to render fainting more likely. It affected the women more than the men because of their restricted blood flow.
 
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