The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-09-12 00:00:00

qscular activity must be to call up
~,,,Qs. the

met', and digestive
It is in this way
erves to strengthen the entire

it only augmented in

Ition is excited, the

itself being strength-

;orate every other

II -through the tissue

the system in gene-

place simultaneously
the great function of

tire of the frame

very part acquires

The heaving Of the
Ld relaxation of the

t in the act of re-

tions of the inte

extremities

and pleasura
utility
by the

volition be exerted for this purpose, the final result of
fatty degeneration ana destruction of the muscular tis-
sue is inevitable. And "—Mr. Davis proceeds, with a
paragraph which, though not so immediately relating
to pedestrianism as such chiefly practised by men in
country rambling, yet from its correlative importance
and value to the fair sex, we shall quote on—" and, how-
ever unpleasant it may be to the fair who may honour
our little treatise with perusal, truth demands from us
to declare, that one of the most frequent seats of mus-
cular degeneration is in the gutters at the sides of the
spinal column, where the thick masses of muscles in-
tended for the complex motions executed by this most
wonderful mechanism of the human frame,* being com-
pressed and deprived of all action by artificial contri-
vances,—their occupation being gone,—are found to be
converted into a lardaceous matter."—lllanual of the
Art of Preserving Henith. By .1. B. Davis, Surgeon.
Whittaker, London. 1836. Pp. 367-70.
" Walking, the most general, is the most beneficial
of these" (corporeal) " exercises. It calls forth the
alternate action of the extensor and flexor muscles of the
lower limbs, as well as the contraction of those of the
loins and of the shoulders. It solicits but little effort
from the muscles of the chest and arms, the latter being
chiefly used to balance the body in its progression, the
arms moving in opposite directions to the legs of the
corresponding sides. • • It makes few demands on
the cerebral organs, further than that exertion of voli-

Lion requisite to keep up the muscular action of the lower
On a level surface it is not a fatiguing
exercise, and only moderately excites the circulatory
and respiratory organs. When pursued on an ascending
plane it becomes laborious, and solicits a proportionate
activity in breathing and in the circulation. Walking
is an exercise suited to almost every age and constitu-
tion ; even the invalid and convalescent partake of it
with advantage ; and there are few individuals can
neglect it except to their prejudice. The famous Mr.
Wm. Hutton, of Birmingham, presents the most re-
markable instance of the love and practice of walking,
kept up to extreme old age. To prepare himself for
writing his Description of the Roman Wall, he under-
took a journey of no less than six hundred miles on foot,
at the age of seventy-eight. And such was his enthu-
siastic attachment to walking, that even to within a very
few days of his death, which took place at the age of
ninety-two, he every day begged to be partly led and
partly pushed over his accustomed number of rounds
about the grass-plot in his garden. The celebrated
Baron Larrey, surgeon-in-chief to Napoleon's grand
army with which he invaded Russia, attributed his
preservation, during the almost universal destruction
that befel the host he accompanied, chiefly by reason of
the severity of a northern winter, in a great measure to
the plan he adopted of traversing the whole distance on
foot. Those who are prone to indulge in brooding fan-
cies and melancholy thoughts should be careful how they
partake in the exercise ; for, unless cheerful society be
conjoined with it, their gloomy propensities may be se-
riously aggravated. indeed this is the surest way of
deriving the largest measure of salutary influences from
walking, by communicating a gentle and agreeable im-
pulsion to the mind. The search for beautiful scenery
and other natural objects, or even for works of art, tends
to a similar end ; and the collection of specimens of na-
tural history, in some one or more of the fertile king-
doms of nature, is another almost inexhaustible means
of imparting an interest to walking."—Davis's Manual,
pp. 39 1-2.

It may be enough to say, that without suitable ex-
ercise, daily and regularly pursued, it is impossible to
enjoy health, or to possess strength, or any moderate
measure of usefulness : that exercise must never be (Bs,
proportioned to previous habits, and must never be pur-
sued beyond moderate limits, otherwise it becomes pre-
.

which any exercise can be made cheering, agreeable,
ble, is almost the precise measure of its
means of Hygiene. For as it can be proved,
table facts of statistics, that happiness is one of

he most essential elements of longevity,in the language

Frame your mind to mirth and