The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-09
Football Players and Dis tance Walkers Undergo
 Same Strain, He Says
ATHLETES HEART"
 A MYTH, HE CLAIMS
Declares He Has Proven This by Many Examinations = Nervous :. People Are Commonly the
 Best Game Players

Berlin, August s.-(Special )-prof. All pert Albu, Germany's greg test authority on nutrition and on the hygiene of sport, mas published a pamphlet which upsets many current notions as to the physiolog- ical effects of games. training and over exertion. He laughs at most accepted . ideas and sets up a new sport theory of his own, the main point of which is that a man is either fit, or not fit, for sport, and that in the first case it is immaterial what sport he chooses.
 All sports which require strained bodily exertion affect the body, says Professor Albu, in the same way. The supposed physiological difference between quick brief and violent games and slow games with sustained bodily strain, does not exist. The effect upon heart and kidneys is identical. and it is mistake to think that the heart is affected by the first and not by the second. The organ which Is affected is the brain. Violent sports which involve over-heating have dangers for the brain, but for the heart they have no more dangers than has slow, heavy exertion. The hearts of a long distance walker and of football player
 
 Influence on Heart Exaggerated
 Laymen, says Albu, exaggerate the per- n.anent influence of sport on the heart There is no such thing as an athlete s heart By athletes heart' is meant a heart hypertrophied or otherwise typically anected by over-exertion. All exertion affects the hearts functioning in par ucular way Whether a man plays a gane violently for five minutes or exerts | himself heavily for five hours. his heart rUL ouons in the same way. As long as the exertion lasts, the heart has to pump into the arteries from three to five times the normal quantity of blood. This means an Increase of pressure in the blood ves- sells until the hearts muscles through over-exertlon suffer kind of temporary paralysis But frequent repetitions of this oNer-exertlon do not produce any chronic heart abnormality which a doctor can recognize an athletes heart Dr. Albu has proved this by examination. In some cases he found that the heart had de- creased in size; in some 1t had increased, and in others there was no change in its size. Hence games and athletics if they affect the heart at all affect it in different ways, but there can be no question of particular diagnosable kind of "ath- lete's heart" This conclusion is backed by the South German doctor, Maltzahn who says he has examined the hearts of 70 footballers, hockey-players and long distance walkers and runners, and found nothing that can be traced dIstinctively tc sport exertion."
 Albu says that from the hygienic stand. point the choice of games and sports is immaterial. game affects a man. health not because of its nature, but be. cause of his nature. The vital questions are the players age, his bodily consti, tuition and power of resistance; finally the question of his. training. If man is all right in these respects he can choose what sport he likes.
 Over-exertion, says Albu, does exist as hyeienic fact. though it has no perrna- nent effect on the heart. The best test cf 1t Is the time taken after playing ar