Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1888-10-05
HEALTH Note FOR OCTOBER
DR.. W. HAMMOND GIVES READERS
SOME SOUND ADVICE.
The Eminent Physician shows the Impor-
lance of Physical Exercise-He says
the Lack of 1t Produces Weak
Heart and Bad Digestion--Stair-
cases rs n Novel Means of Ex-
ercise-A Few Words
About Tennis.


The so called summer resorts have by
this time nearly all closed their doors and
their sojourners have returned to their
homes and resumed their habitual modes
of life. AS rule physical exercise does
not enter into their calculations they are
disposed to regard the time spent in walk
ing to and from their places of business as
so much taken out OF the sum by which
| they hope to lay up good store of dollars.
With the object of wasting as few min
utes as possible in other employments than
such as their shop and their offices re-
quire of them, they try to get their resi-
dences as near as possible to the insalu
brious dens where they spend from 10 to
| IL hours every day III the worship of the
god Mammon. If they are forced by cir
cumstances to live at some considerable
! distance from the places where their
brains are kept in a state of continual
warfare, they seek for dwellings on the
| line of some street railway, so as to save
| them the necessity of stretching their legs
and expanding their chests any more than
| is absolutely necessary. An American
business man appears to be born with a
Discrimination to walk. | have seen half
dozen at q time stand around the entrance
to hotel elevator, wasting several min
utes in waiting for the machine to come
tor them rather than mount one flight of
steps. AS consequence of this physical
inertia most business men OF the present
dhy have weak muscles and especially
weak hearts, so that should they be obllg-
ed to exert themselves to even a 81 ght de
gree their limbs become exhausted and
tremble like "a reed shaken by the wind"
their respiration becomes hurried and DIFF
ficult, aud their pulses beat at the rate of
l95 minute or even more.
1t is only necessary to stand at the cor
ner of the street through which a street
railway passes and to W itch the men and
women leaving their homes directly after
breakfast and running 100 feet or so at the
top Of their speed to catch an approaching
car, as though it was the only one by
which they could go down town aud their
lives depended on their getting into that
particular vehicle. How they pant and
blow aud turn red in the face and gesticu-
late wildly at the conductor and drop into
their seats thoroughly exhausted from the
comparatively slight eXertlon into which
they have been forced by heir love of bus
mess Many minutes elapse before they
recover their mental and physical equan-
unity. Not year passes that the newspa-
pers do not record several deaths that
have occurred from this practice" and
which would not take place If the sub
cient muscular exercise. In such people
the heart is suddenly subjected to a strain
to which it is not accustomed and 1t gives
way in the effort to accomplish the work
required of it. ! venture to say that of
those who read these observations not one
in 10 can ascend the steps OF an elevated
railway station as slowly as he pleases
without having the action of the heart
nearly doubled in frequency a rapidly
beating heart is almost invariably feeble
heart.
Now there is but one legitimate way OF
making the heart strong. That Is by tax
ing regular. systematic and sufficient mus
cular exercise, into which climbing heights
or staircases enters as prominent fea
ture. Let a person who finds his pulse
increased 80 or 60 beatg in minute after
mounting "A staircase climb 100 starcases
day afte, day Tor month or more and he
will find that the eXertion does not add 10
beats to the normal number of his heart
throbs. The exercise has acted upon this
vital organ just as i has Oh the muscles
of his legs, or AS it does on the biceps OF a
prize-fi liter or a blacksmith, aud strength
and the capacity for endurance nave been
the result.
But this is not all the good that will be
gained by climbing leo staircase, day
say 80 in the morning and 80 in The after
noon. Doubtless the person with a weak
heart has suffered more or less from what
is called nervous dyspepsia. His food, in
stead of being properly dlgested, has been
mainly fermented in his stomach and mas
caused him various uncomfortable feel
ings. which he has been in the habit Of
attributng to everything but their proper
cause. Not only have the 100 minutes or
50 spent in climbing starcHses put
strength into his legs, expanded his chest
and saved heart from fatty degeneration,
but they had given tone to his abdominal
muscles and to his digestive organs His
food no longer lies like a lump of lead in
his stomach, torpor has disappeared from
(what we physicians call aud which, for
the sake of delicacy, | must here designate
them his chylopoetic viscera, and his sys-
TEN gets the fun benefit OF the food which
is required for Its nouriShment.
But even this is not all. He has proba-
bly, slept badly Enthusiastically, his brain
having been kept in AN undue state of &C
tivity during the day, and its vessels be-
ing disteuded with blood which ought to
be in other parts of his body, refuses to
be quiet when he seeks the repose that he
so greatly needs. He is troubled with
dreams always sign of imperfect Sleep |
and he rises in the morning teverish, un-
refreshed and not thoroughly equipped |
for the labors of the day before him. But |
his staircase exercise changes all this. |
The blood is now properly distributed to |
the eXtremites of his body, he no longer |
suffers from cold feet and hands, the veins |
and arteries of his brain cease 10 he filled |
to repletlon, and sleep ensues as natural
OF course, in mounting his 100 staircases
a day It would be imprudent for him to be
gin with this number. At first one in the
and one in the afternoon are suf-
ficient and the task may be doubled every
day with entire safety until the requisite
quota is reached. There is no danger of
his relapsng into his former sedentary
habits. The feeling of biCn dtSG and state
of general beattude will be so marked
that he will be anxious to continue the
good work.
In specifying staircase as the proper
place for exercise | am only using 1t as
type of the kind of muscular eXertion
that Is the most desirable and the one
most readily accessible for the resident of
a city. A steep hill in the country is far
Cor there the physical effort is .
accompanied by the mental eXhlliration
from exercise in the open air,
but we must make the best Of the means
at our disposal.
Not many years ago it was the custom
In England-and the practice is still, pro-
badly, kept up in the rural districts-to
sentence petty malefactors to the tread
mil, an ingenious contriyance for keep
ing the prisoner, whether he would or not,