Year: 1879

Sensible Words from a Noted Physician.


DR.. B. W. Richardson, London, says
in the Ge1ltLemd1z'S MGgazine I was at
a swimming bath where some 20 boys,
all under II years of age, were SWIM
ming or learning to swim. There was
no comparison between these lads in q
matter of physical outline. One, a short
lad, had narrow and pointed chest, 8
fragile form, and almost transparent
skin, achilly surface of body, and blue
lip; another, a tall, broad-shouldered
broad-chested youth, had a full and
ruddy complexion, warm surface and
a firm muscular build. The others va
ried between these two standards. Such
were the physical conditions of the
swimmers, and so constructed physical
ly they commenced the recreation.
Swimming is healthy recreation when
properly carried out, as well as useful
and necessary. But here was the mis-
chief from it in the case of the boys in
question; there was no discrimination
in the amount of the recreation. The
boy with the pigeon chest and blue lip
had quite as much of it as was safe for
him at the end of five minutes; but, to
keep him up to the same standard as
the swimmer with the broad chest, who
had such buoyant lungs that he could
hardly sink even if he tried, the boy was
encouraged and almost driven to go on
and keep on, until he had passed
through the same ordeal as his more
favored comrade. The result was
that the weak boy came out
of the water blue all over. an
hour later was as blue as bilberry in
the lips and cheeks, and was cold, shiv-
ering, feeble and sleepy. could see
those boys as plainly as if l had follow
ed them going back to school and at the
afternoon work. I could be as sure as
l could be of any physiological fact that
1t would require six hours, under the
most favorable of circumstances in reIa-
ton to food, rest and warmth, to fully
reVitalize that feeble boy up to his own
imperfect standard, while no number of
hours would ever bring his vitality up to
the standard of his more fortunate fell
low-student. Look now at the error, at
the long series of errors, committed by
this mode of recreation on the feeble
boy. His animal warmth had been rob-
bed unduly, and he was therefore languid
and unhappy. His blood was aerated
less freely than it should be. and he was
therefore circulating blood more slowly
than he ought, and breathing with ex-
cess of labor. He was more susceptible
to every depressing influence, and his
nervous system was dulled in the same
manner as it would be from sitting in a
close and badly ventilated room. He
would be drowsy, and perhaps the mas
ter of his school would say idle or apa-
thetic. For this he would be rated at
his lessons, compared with other boys
who got on better, and if not punished
cOrporeally, made irritable aud anxious
in mind, which is another form of pun
ishment. This nervous lad, never over
strong, would be again unduly taxed.
And now, what else must follow
as results? When the nervous system
is low and depressed, the digestive pow
er is enfeebled, the nutrition of the body
tai organs, on which life depends, and in
which the activity of nutritive changes
ought to be most rapid aud regular, are
the first to suffer, while even such pas
sive parts as those which make up the
skeleton do not escape scot-free. See,
then, what modification of healthy life
may be easily effected by one apparently
triiing error of recreation. Let that
error be repeated many times, or let
some equivalent error be performed
and repeated many times, and what
is the almost necessary result? The al
most necessary result is the in
stitution of that feeble body, in active
form, of the phenomena of disease to-
ward which it had q proclivity, on which
the feebleness depended. 1t will possi


bly, be urged by some that the process
of making these feeble boys compete
with stronger boys is intended to invig-
crate the feeble. For familiar reason,
these same naturally enfeebled children
are often sent out of doors in cold
weather '' to harden them" The ignO-
rance is beyond pardon. As you can not
gather grapes of thorns nor figs of this
ties, so you can not out of a weak ami
NAL frame extract strength except by
taking it out of the bank of life, to the
premature shortening of the inherit
ed store of life. Mothers know
of these facts better than
fathers, and mothers are often laughed
at because theic knowledge is the
knowledge of love, and passion, and
anxiety, rather than of cold, calculat-
ing, reasonable-I had almost said
commercial-expectatiOn. But the
mothers are none the less right, and, in
deed, men know better when they are
dealing with lives that have to be bought
and sold. The great breeders of focks
and herds do not try to harden or over
tax the young animal they want to per
! feet. They use a wise discretion, and
they succeed in what they do. At the
same time they are often indiscriminate
about their own children. A country
! surgeon, whom much esteemed for his
/ quick insight, once brought TO me for
I consultation a feeble boy with a con-


sumptive tendency, in order to settle
! the question whether the mothers fOs-
| teriDg or the fathers hardening system


should prevail. t The father" said my


friend, s' is a clever man; he is most


successful in the management of cattle,


and if he would be only half as clever


in the rearing of his children all would


be well. But he is very hasty on this


point, and the other day-a day bitterly


cold-he did two of the most inconsist-


ent things ever knew a man to do. He


quarreled like fury with his poor wife


for sending Charlie to skate with his legs


in warm stockings, and five minutes


later dismissed his groom for taking q


colt out for exercise without clothing il
in a horse cloth.''


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