The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-07-19

BY Elliott Flint in the New York World
IN LII know that. however strong GER
V1 tain parts may be. the weakness
4 of some part or parts may de-
stroy the whole organism. Or. there may
be a less extreme result-weak parts may
merely interfere with the workings OF
other parts. This. however, is serious
enough. The remarkable intellect of Her
bert Spencer was. greatly hampered by
his i'll health.
A sound stomach and an enduring body
are then. as essential to the brain-work-
er as to the laborer; and these the brain
worker can get only by physical exercts-.
Nature insists on a balance, but when
there Is unbalance. it tends primarily, UNI
less resisted, to become more pronounced.
The physiological principle to be kept
constantly in mind is that the blood goes
in greater quantity and its nutritive ele-
ments are most absorbed by those parts
that are being used; while in parts that
are not used there will be a small blood
flow and little absorption.
Let us now. disregarding the cerebral
part consider the serious effects of pro-
nounced corporal unbalance. In pneu-
mona muscular strength win not avail If
the patients heart be weak. Weak kid
neys, a sluggish liver, a serious blood
disease, malaria, will in time break down
the strongest constitution. In the man.
again, that excessively develops his mus
cles without at the same time doing work
that Is sufficiently general to cause
breathlessness, we see one whose lungs
trQ ut ~
and weakened by the blood being hab-
itually drawn to external parts. Such
men rarely live to be old, and often they
die of consumption. Richard Pencil, who
put up two hundred dumb bell with
one hand, a worlds record in his day,
died prematurely of this dread disease;
not, indeed, because ne lifted weights,
but because he did no other kind OF
work Had he supplemented his weight
exercise by running. thus expanding and
developing his lungs and heart, he might
have been alive today; at all events, he
would have lived much longer.
To enjoy robust health it is necessary
that the development of the internal or
gans keep pace with external develop
ment. External development, too. should
development that results from exclusive
bicycle riding or running greatly weak
ems upper parts.
Prior to mentioning the effects of I'M
balance l said parenthetically that un-
balance had a secondary effect. We have
seen that even slight unbalance tends,
at first to become more pronounced; by
now we see also that eventually this pro-
cess is reversed. The weaker parts that
for a time grow weaker. at last grow
so weak that they weaken strong parts.
Nature does not finally raise the whole
strength to the strength of the strongest
part. 1t. on the contrary lowers the
whole strength to the weakness of the
weakest part. In fine. the stronger parts
in the end capitulate to the weaker parts.
Though weak heart may for a time CO.
exist with strong muscles. yet the hearts
inability to pump the amount of blood
demanded by strong muscles will finally
disintegrate them.
Examples of the dire effects OF pro-
nounced cerebral unbalance have been
furnished by some noted chess players.
Chess playing greatly develops other
parts, often to such an extent as to cause
insanity. Harry Nelson Pillsbury, the
chess master, who once accomplished the
remarkable feat of winning twenty-five
games at chess simultaneously while
blindfolded, died recently of apoplexy. For
more than a year previous to his death
he was cerebrally diseased. William
Steinitz, who held the worlds chess cham
pionship for ten years became insane and
died in 1900. Paul Morphy. perhaps the
greatest chess player that ever lived, was
not in his right mind when he died in
1884. Inventors often go mad through
dwelling always on the one theme.
Insanity is but a shorter name for -cere-
bral unbalance. The sanest man has at
times impulses; but these are, in his case,
always inhibited by impulses from other