The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-18
TIE DANGERS IF
 ATHLETIC TRAINING It Overloads and Enlarges the Heart and Brings
 Exhaustion. PROLONGED PRESSURE Why Student Athletics Should Be More Care
 fully Conducted.
PROLONGED PRESSURE

luI1y conducted.
 The dangers of athletic training" are now self-evident, for the trained" man is using surplus energies designed fer short emergencies. He works to the limit of his powers and reduces his factor of safety. His arteries are un- der a prolonged pressure which they cannot safely stand, though they are designed to bear it as an exceptional short load. Consequently they th!cken. The heart is overloaded, and it tooN en- larges, for Meltzer shows that Natures rule is to restore the factor of safety when possible The nervous system Is likewise overloaded and it's reserve fund" drawn upon, with subsequent neurasthenia, alcoholism and allied habits of the nervously exhausted. Ar teriosclerosis, heart disease, neuras- thenia, alcoholism, drug habits, in- creased susceptibility to tuberculosis and other infections--these are the re- suits of imposing upon our factors of safety whether by muscular or mental strains What a plea for the simple life
 The mortality of college athletes has been statictlcally investigated by Dr. William c. Anderson, director of the Yale gymnasium, who finds that while death has claimed 12.9 per cent. of Yale graduates since 1855, yet only 7,2 per cent of those who have made" a team have died. He states that this lessened 1 mortality might be due to the fact that the teams are composed of picked men, selected by reason of original strength and perfect condition. The "weaklings" do not attain the team. Nevertheless, Anderson's article implies that college athletics are not injurious, and 1t Is most dangerous for that reason. These picked men should show far less nor tality-extra good insurance risks. Moreover, he fails to note that the worst dangers are the product of the methods grown up in the last 25 or 30 years. In 1855, and for a long time af- terward, unnatural training was not so common, if 1t was permitted at ali, Finally, the dangers are not immedi- ately fatal, indeed the worst result eurasthenia-seems actually to pro- long life, for the sufferer ceases the strains, stops work, and gets far below his reduced factor of safety.
 Statistics have rarely been put to a more unsclentlflc use than by Dr. An- derson, for they imply the opposite of the truth. Modern college sports must be In bad way to stoop to such a defense. A method Is bad if 1t selects for unnatural strains few of the best, for the delectation of a horde of pimp- | ly-faced, hollow-chested boys, whose ideal of physical training is to smoke cigarettes, drink beer, give the college | yell, and root for the "beef" of the col lege. If student is so well developed that he can make team" his furth- CT training is unnecessary Nature can be trusted to continue the good work. l The effort of gymnasium 'experts" should be directed to men unable to make team. All the money spent in training" for college contests Is worse than wasted, for some of 1t does harm Present methods produce the molly coddles" of the bleachers, Proper sport cures them. Prof. Wilder of Cornell has wisely written against football and l such "sports" of the few, and his words should awaken the universities to their duties to the mollycoddles caused by sport"
 The decreasing need of great mus culature is point which our univer- sfties would do well to keep In mind Primitive man domesticated certain animals for their muscular power, but modern man has long been inventing mechanical devices to supplement o1 1 replace his own feeble muscles. As civilization advances, the man of intel. ligence is becoming more of brain worker directing the power of ma. chimes and the labor of animals or the lower races. Consequently great mus. culature is really parasite requiring time and labor to keep it healthy and also an undue amount of nourishment Such men are not necessarily the best indeed, many of them die much earl e, thna is supposed for they are physiol- ogical profgates The digestive system is required to do much work unncces sary in mon of lighter build and in ths race of life the least buTdenad have the advantage. Boys are naturally proud of muscular development ant can usually be depended upon to worl it up themselves without the unwhole. somo stimulation of gymnasium de- aigned for the defective. It does seer as though our college sports were de velopng muscles beyond all practlca needs of educated men of intelligence
 The dangers of great musculatur' are new well known. Such men ar constantly tempted to an exettion fo, which the heart aud arteries are n7 fitted so that cardiac hypartrophy an( artericsclerosis are the inevitable ra suits. Savage man did not work hard a. a rule; he hunted intermtttently ant lay idle betimes The arteries can- stant thlt kind of treatment but not persist ent high tension Muscular workers dc not live as long as the sedentary wh are able to live normally Of c0ur7 tailoring and such trades are fata from infections due to confinement, bu the clergy, who can live in the open ai or at least in good, arc lcng lived Trades require great ezertlon. such q I steel pudding, ar2 very quickly fatal Boys, then, need not be stimulated t develop fatal degree of lusculature if anything, they need restraint.
 The advantages, of Q good physlqu need not ben mentioned There h2v been many frail men of genius, but tn successful and noted men of the worl arc generally tho opposite. They ar