Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1897-06-25
SHORT-LIVED BIKERS!
USE OF THE BICYCLE SAID TO
SHORTEN LIFE.
Claim That Excessive Exercise Pro.
duces Albuminuria - Insurance
Companies now Heed It-Effect
Like Hard Drinking.

A man who applied for life insur-
ance policy to one of the biggest COM
panies in the country was amazed
when his application was rejected on
the ground that he was suffering from
albuminuria. In his mind, as with
most other people, this disease was
associated with over-indulgence in
beer. He had been a total abstainer
all his life. About the only thing he
lndulged in to excess was bicycle rid
ing. When he made inquiries about
the result of his examination he was
told that too much bicycle riding was
as bad for the kidneys as too much
beer. 1ntemperance in physical exer-
else counts as much as any other form
of intemperance in determining wheth-
er man is "good risk"
This subject was discussed at length
at a meeting of the Association of Life
Insurance Medical Directors, held in
New York recently. DR.. T. Glover
Lyon, of London, Secretary of the
British Life Insurance Association,
took part in the discussion. DR.. &C.
Young, of Newark, read a paper on
albuminuria, in which he said that
prolonged physical exercise brought
on the disease as frequently as the
use of alcoholic stimulants. He spoke
of bicycling, fencing, boxing, football,
and other forms OF sport or recreation
in which people might easily indulge
to an excess that would make them
bad risks for life insurance company.
Albuminuria is the stumbling block of
two-thirds of the people whose appli-
cations for life insurance policy are
rejected. A few years ago it would
have been considered absurd to say
that life insurance companies would,
under any circumstances, issue pol
icy to a person afflicted with it. But
now it is practically assured that at
least three of the big companies will
do SO within short time. Their
medical boards have been devotine
great deal of attention to the subject,
and they have come to the conclusion
that under ordinary conditions albu-
minuria should not bar q mans ability
to obtain life insurance.
A reporter for the New York World
asked one of the chief medical direc-
tors for the New York Life Insurance
Company how a bicycle rider should
know whether or not he was riding to
excess, and what amount of physical
exercise of any character man might
safely take without danger to his kid.
neys.
"He should stop when his heart
tell him to-" was the reply: "If a
person rides until he is tired, he has
ridden little too far. If he rides so
fast that he feels his heart beating
against his chest, it is time for him to
get off his wheel. If he makes his
evening spin so long that he cannot
readily get to sleep when he gets home,
it is time for him to take warning.
Of course man could experience
both fatigue and palpitation and still
not have strained himself, but I men.
tion this as very safe limit. If a
person never goes beyond it, he will
never do himself any harm on BIZ
cycle.
"At the meeting of medical direc-
tors you ask me about, it was only the
excess of bicycle riding and other
forms of physical exercise that came
up for discussion. 1t was pointed out,
for example, that wrestlers, football
players, prize-fghters and persons un.
dergoing that form of physical exer-
else get up a temporary congestion of
the kidneys and show the bad effects
for some time afterwards. But even
in these cases it was not claimed that
the congestion took permanent char
acter.