Sex efficiency through exercises : special physical culture for women / by Th. H. van de Velde ; [photos, by E. Steinemann].
203/426

SUPPLEMENT CHAPTER XV SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR PRESERVING AND RESTORING THE BREASTS AFTER LACTATION The development and texture of the bust can only be affected indirectly by pelvic exercises or by the special physical culture during pregnancy and the puerperium which we have described in detail. And this indirect influence operates through the improved general and genital health and efficiency of the individual woman. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly consonant with our efforts to preserve and increase this health and efficiency, if we also consider special methods of preserving the contour and consistency of the breasts when they have fulfilled their nutritive office. No doubt, the function of the mammary glands is first and foremost to secrete milk and feed the child, for the mother's milk contains all necessary elements for the child's health and growth in the early stages of post-natal life, and breast-fed children have the best chances of becoming fully healthy and efficient as individuals and as members of the human race. But the breasts are not organs of nutrition alone. They are also erogenous regions, attracting desire and affording pleasure. A well-proportioned and rounded bust greatly adds to the attraction of any woman's appearance, and has often decisive influence on the impulse of approach in lover or husband. And when the bust is " spoilt "—misshapen, flaccid or shrivelled—there is a correspondingly unfortunate effect, which easily leads to definite " inferiority complexes " —particularly when this pitiful disfigurement follows on previous comeliness and charm. On the other hand, women whose breasts are conspicuously lovely, or even merely pretty, are always proudly and happily aware of them. So it stands to reason that the emotional effect of such loss or impairment on the woman herself and on the feelings