Men's Clothing A FTER the hubbub we are now all agreed,
gladly or reluctantly, that the change in women's clothing is all to the good. No young mother of to-day carries tubercle bacilli on the trailed edges of her skirt, out of the antiseptic light into the shade of her children's nursery, where they can flourish whilst the children fade away. No medical student, "doing out-patients," sees rows of anaemic urban girls, victims of chlorosis or the green-sickness, as it was called in Shakespeare's time. The disease has practically vanished, and the doctors can take no credit therefor ; except, perhaps, a tiny handful of pioneers, who have looked to Nature and Hippocrates, and the records of open-air schools and sanatoria,, and who have supported the modern fashion in women's clothes. . Pseudo-therapy, in duet with Mrs. Grundy, sawg sad nonsense about the "pneumonia blouse." Real knowledge demonstrated that the best way in which to resist the invasion of the prieumococcus is to have a resistant and responsive skin, educated by freedom and responsibility, adjusting the b`Otly- temperature,' signalling appropriate indications to the nervous centres which control the distribution of the blood, and tints maintaining a body physiologically foursquare to all the winds that blow. The enhanced health and beauty, the physiqltie. and endurance of young . . . . . WOMen,. including women still. young at ages at Which their; grandmothers were senile,; and the aston- ishing reduction in the female death-rate from pulmonary triberculosis, pneumonia. , ehlorosis, coincides with the liberation of the female body from the stifling clothing Of -fia-A-getieratiOns. Whilst women have become longer-lived, longer- limbed, More beautiful and versatile, whilst the children of even, the less fortunate, classes are allowed by their mothers to go' bare legged and bare-armed (whereas Until' recently their mothers felt compelled to over- clOthe them in order to show that they could afford to d6 so), whilst women and children, who undoubtedly Matter Most, for they are the whole future, have Profited thus; where are -Men in this advance? They are toiling and .Sweltering in' the rear; Wearing the' collar of their eivilized slavery, dancing in hot ballrooms in closely *oven' clothing made of wool, playing tennis in long flannel trousers, and generally making themselves as ridiculous as they find their ancestors to be, in the old pictures you see in the pavilion at Lord's or else- -where, of eiicketers 'in the field- in top hats and braces. _Miring Many long years I have urged that We must get 'OUr bodies baek into' "the air 'and the light if we are to conquer tuberculosis and pneumonia, not to mention ilokets amongst our children, for whom, thank 'Heaven, the battle is 'now wen; Tomorrow, Or the day after, the laboratories may yield Us Ole-I-no-therapeutic 'remedies 'Which 'really cure Such• diseases. Yet , even " 606 " itself is incapable of killing spirilla unless the body of the- patient does its part. After all the triumphs of synthetic ehernistry We still find that the Vis medicatrix Naturae is the hope of ailing humanity. Back to the light and air, lea& to the sourees of our strength, like Antaens to Mother Earth! "Women and children first," by all means, but men too; if there be room in the boat. And there is ample room under the sky for Men alsci AO be• saved froni the- "diseases 'of darkness," as I have called them. The principles of 'Wilier and his forerunners, are - triurriphing all over Switzerland, Germany, and Scandinavia. Where in past years was only room for" water-baths, now the traveller sees room made for air and light baths: as at the new "Montreux plage," near which I write; or on the Neckar at Heidelbeig ; or on the Rhine at Basle—to name places I have recently observed. Men who have learnt- what it means to have a really ventilated body begin to work in physical freedom. During the War gwiss: 'citizens, mobilized though neutral; were often ordered to denude the upper half of the body, for health and refreshment, thanks to Rollier's influence.. Ever since, on the boats on the lake, and in the fields, you see men, bronzed and splendid, working nude from the *aist up. We Who make holiday- abroad. at this time of the _ . year sun-bathe, and Can -even -:write articles for the Opeetotor whilst sun-bathing. Soon we must return and fit our necks to the collar again. Boy Scouts are more fortunate, but unless someone does something civilization will collar them also anon. Someone mrist do something. The physiological facts are certain. They have been largely worked out and placed on an exact scientific basis by Dr. Leonard Hill, E.R.S., Director of the Department of Applied Physiology under our Medical Research Council. His findings are everywhere acknowledged by students of the living body of man. We must apply them to our ways of living, of housing and clothing, or wilfully commit slow, suicide-r- not that pneumonia is so slow. The New Health Society has appointed a committee to study clothing in its relations to health,* Under its auspices researches are now being conducted in the University of Leeds. Space does not here avail for a discussion of the many points which arise. I may be allowed to return to the subject. Meanwhile we may consider the following propositions, which seem to be valid (1) We must not wilfully or negligently or unnecessarily sacrifice seemliness or beauty to physiological considera- tions. (2) We must not make dress reform An excuse for slovenliness or a lowered standard of cleanliness or of the symbolical cleanliness indicated in the expression "a clean shave." (3) We must not Make reforms too violently, but must hasten slowly; it took years for skirts to rise as many inches, (4) We must deal as best we may with the deplorable hirsuteness of so many men. (5) At the same time, we must be firm in our handling of prudery, which is the devil's counterfeit of modesty. (6) Reform must come from those in authority, with prestige and personality enough to carry it , off. We cannot wait for long years of ridicule and futility, corre- sponding to the " bloomers " epoch in female dresS reform. (7) We had best begin where our case is obviously strongest. Not many more Wimbledons should come and go before we see men playing there in shorts, without sleeves, and with open necks. During the Wimbledon of 1926, when the Duke of York played in the men's doubles, I observed that he wore a short-sleeved polo shirt, and I commented on it at the time as a sign of hope. To-day Cambridge undergraduates are wearing similar shirts for tennis, "They say" one cannot Teform men's clothing, but they are wrong. The animal is stupid and slow, but not hopeless. Where are the frock coats of yesteryear?
CRUSADER. •
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