100-year-old X-rays reveal how corset-clad Victorian women endured pain

X-rays published in 1908 demonstrate how corsets of the era narrowed the lower rib cage.

X-ray images from the early 20th century illustrate what women were willing to endure in the name of fashion: namely, squashed rib cages and displaced organs, thanks to their tightly-laced metal-enforced corsetry.

The images are included in a medical paper written in 1908 by Dr. Ludovic O'Followell of France, meant to illustrate the potential health detriments of wearing corsets, the New York Daily News reported.

Corsets have been worn since ancient times and have always been a subject of cultural and medical debate, O'Followell writes in "Le Corset."

The metal boning in Victorian-era corsets shifted the abdomen and internal organs downward.

In his book, the doctor draws upon X-ray technology, which was still in its infancy, to compare the bodies of women wearing corsets to those without.

Corsets narrow the bottom ribs, O'Followell notes, which can impair the lungs, make breathing difficult.

The hourglass look also compresses some of the organs against the spine, while others are shifted down into the lower abdomen.

Victorian experts disagreed on whether corsets inflicted permanent damage on the body, such as causing digestive issues, enlarging the liver or leaving wearers more vulnerable to pneumonia and tuberculosis, and many of their theories don't hold up against modern medical knowledge.

But O'Followell's work, as well as the opinions of other physicians of the era, influenced the creation of more flexible corsetry.