The National tribune., 1889-05-16
Written for THE NATIONAL TR1BuNE.1
HEALTH HINTS
For Old and Young.
BY FELIX L. OSWALD, NJ. D.,
Remedies: aThe Rive Of Nature" ETC.
CHAPTER XVI.

IA CUJlSCtOF vi Literary CuT1OolblCo
the project of pious old lady who induced a
publisher to print lot of " Health Primers
for the benefit of the poor heathens, and ship
ped treatise on the hygienic value OF cold
water to the Solomon Islands, where people pass
half their time in sporting, like ducks, in the
surf
Two hundred years ago work on gymnas-
tics for the benefit of American colonlsts
would have been almost superfuous; but with
the advance of civilization and indoor modes
of life the opportunities for physical exercise
become less abundant, or are limited to oecupa-
lions tending to one-sded developments OF the
organism. A letter carrier, for IN
stance exercises his legs at the expense OF his
arms; a blacksmith develops his arm muscles at
the expense of his legs and on the sculptures OF
Eastern monuments the Parthian horsemen
are represented as bow-legged dwarts with
enormous fists
The word gymnastics is derived from gynlloS
(naked), and superfuity of clothing is in
deed, the first impediment to muscular devel-
opment. At time when rapid growth begets
an instructive desire for the constant exercise
OF the motive organs our children are Kept IN
the letters of contrivances that hamper the
activity of their limbs in every possible way
swaddling- clothes, undershirts, overshlrts
neck-wrappers aud trailing founces turn the
helpless youngster into bundle of dry goods,
limited to the pleasure of expressing his dis
comfort by bowling and consequently howllng
wofully from morning till night. The knee
breeches period brings partial relief, though
thick overcoats and fashionable shoes reduce
thousands of city schoolboys to the snail-pace
march of a public promenade frequented
chiefly for the purpose of a dry-goods exhibit
ton. Tom Stephens, the celebrated English
trainer, used to say that only men with per-
fectly straight toes will make first class rum
ners and wrestlers, and that qualification
is nowadays rarely found outside of country
homes where boys of Is are still permitted to
run barefoot.
Yet, after all, the development of our lower
extremities is less frequently neglected than
that of our arms. In new born child the diff
ference in that respect is not very consider
able; in our next relatives, the tree-climbing
monkeys and apes, the arm muscles are actually
more powerfully developed than any other part
of the motive organism, and judging from the
performances of the papooses born in the wig
vans of the Brazilian forest Indians, baby
could be taught to climb quite as early as to
walk. Under the conditions of our conven-
tional system of education, however, the lower
extremities get -tenths of all chances
for exercise. In the course of Summer day
even city boy runs TO aud fro up and down
stairs, or through the streets in zig-zag course
aggregating total of perhaps seven miles-an
equivalent of $1,000 steps-each step perform
ing the, feat of lifting and moving the entire
weight of the body. The child's arms in the
meanwhile may have struck a few dozen blows
at baseball or bombarded board fence with
stones averaging weight of four ounces
though more probably the functions of the arm
muscles have been limited to the feats of carry
ing q small sachel and conveying so many
spoonfuls of food from the plate to the mouth.
Among thousands of business men, too, the idea
of exercise I" is limited to the plan of taking q
stroll; i. e., giving the locomotive apparatus of
the body repetition of an oft-repeated prac-
tice, and letting the arms hang down idly.
For people biest with the advantage of a
thoroughly ventilated home, it would often be
wise plan to stand still and swing a pair of
good sized Indian clubs There would be no
danger of the knee and hip.joints getting stiff
from want of opportunity for exercise. Such
opportunities we have always with US. We
hdue to walk. The most liberal patron of street
ears and livery stables cannot help walking
from his bed to his toilet-room, and from his
writing-tabie to the breakfast table, not to men,
tion the more considerable distance from the
street-car to his office door. Trifing In them
selves, those little performances will still aggre-
gate an amount of muscular effort far exceeding
that exerted by a professional arm-athlete on
circus days.
Realizing the sanitary advantages of equaliz-
| ing that disparity, modern inventors have con-
I
for the exercise of the arm muscles. The most
effective, though about the cheapest on the list
| is a grdpple-SgiRg-a pair of leather covered
| rings fastened to stout ropes and Suspended
| from rafter in the ceiling or from projecting
| limb of shade tree. Without any special
instruction, those rings, dangling at hight Of
about eight feet above ground, can be used fol
/ d number of eyolutions, exercising the very
muscles which in our conventional mode Of
! life are most apt to be neglected. By way Of
variety, the gymnast may add knotted rope
arranged for climbing by a hand-over-hand
/ process after the fashion of sailors in the rig
! ging or of our Darwinian cousins in the vine
| tangle of their native woods. By occasionally
dispensing with those knots and sezing the
rope midways, the climber may rapidly i'm
prove his strength OF grasp, an advantage thai
may be utilized in ali sorts of manual trades
even if we should hesitate to accept the theory O
! the Rev. Salzmann, who holds that the ancient
| practice of handshaking was originally sug
| gested by the wish to ascertain the wrist
! power-and consequent wrestling capacity-o
stranger. For cOunteracting a tendency K
pulmonary complaints one such apparatus il
| worth carload of patent cough medicine.
Weak lungs can also be strengthened by
| contrivance which the Greeks and Roman
| thought an indispensable adjunct of every
! traning-school, and which our German TurRe,
| have re-introduced in their gymnasiums, viz.
a stout post with movable top-piece, formin,
| target, which a number of competitive
athletes endeavor to hit with rather heav,
spear, from a distance varying from Is to q
yards. Hit squarely in the center, with tn
requisite amount of crack. the top-piece will
tumble over, but, still hanging in its stou
hinges, can be promptly adjusted for the mex
marksman. In the drill-yards of the medieva
castles "spear-block always stood alongsid
of the arrow target; and it curiously charac
terizes our modern amateur athletes, that the
have revived the lighter kind of exercise (wit
ness the several hundred archery clubs" c
the United States alone) but given the other
wide berth.
"of two such lessons, why forget
The better and the manlier one?"
Yet, for purposes of sport, in the old Olympi
sense of the word, spear throwing surpasse
archery as baseball surpasses lawn croque
The six lancer regiments of the Mexican arm
have quite popularzed spear-throwing in tn
land of our next neighbors, and the mos
enthusiastic assembly / ever knew to gathe
from motives of athletic rivalry was a mas,