Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1879 — Risks of Athletic Work. [ARTICLE]

Risks of Athletic Work.

What risks, then, does the youth run who puts in two, three or more years at severe athletics, frequently, either when practicing “on time” y in his various races, doing his very utmost, and coming in at the end thoroughly exhausted, and “ with nothing left in him?” If, either by inheritance or years of vigorous exercise before his racing begins, he starts into it with a sound andstrong body, is carefully and thoroughly trained for each contest, and takes an ample interval of rest between his races, not racing every afternoon for a fortnight, for instance, as in the English “ bumping” races, and if the distance covered is not greater than men of his caliber have uspally raced over w ih impunity, he probably does not run much risk of bodily injury or of shonening his life. How one lacking csie or two of these requirements fared in a sudden and severe test of his strength and endurance may be seen from tbe case of one of Dr. Morgan’s patients, not a university man: “He was compelled to carry a heavy sack of corn for - a considerable distance without having the opportunity of taking rest on the way. He was struggling to reach the end of his journey, when he suddenly felt something give way within his chest; he experienced a rush of blood to the head, and fell down insensible. One of the valves of the left side of the heart was torn from its attachment. * * * Death approached with rapid strides.” The doctor hints that this man’s heart was not previously healthy, speaks of a case where an aneurism of the heart was in-

duced by the exertions of a boat-race, but says intemperance was the cause, and asserts “ unhesitatingly that whenever by reason of some violent strain an accident occurs, either to the heart itself or to one of its great vessels, that heart was not at the time in a perfectly healthy state.” It may be said that men who have been intemperate seldom turn athletes, but one of the fastest scullers America has yet produced had, not a great while before his best race, been notoriously intemperate; while the stroke oar of a winning crew, in a hard race near New York City, in 1877, had some time before had delirium tremens. The carrying of the sack of corn was probably not harder work than is frequently done in a boat race. Tha writer once carried a 150-pound man on his shoulders around the Delta at Cambridge, said to be a third of a mile and forty yards, and did not find it as hard as the last mile of one or two stiff races, or that he was ever the worse for it. But how is one to know that his heart and lungs are free from defect, and that he has strength and stay enough to risk his racing with impunity? His family physician —or, sometimes better yet, any physician who has made heart and lung disorders a specialty—can easily determine the former, just as many physicians did determine it in the war, and rejected men from the army, or as the examining physicians of the life-insurance companies determine now, and admit or reject every day. As to the latter, long and careful preparation; then racing over a short distance, then over longer, until the desired length can be done without distress, aniThe finds that between efforts he is none the worse for them—these will aid him to a conclusion. If before any youth could row or run a race he were compelled to be examined as to his organic fitness by some competent physician, and summarily rejected if there was any weakness; if, in addition, some person equally qualified to supervise made sure that before the contest was entered on adequate preparation was had, it would go far toward reducing the physical risk to a minimum, if not quite doing away with it. But so long as half-grown, half-developed youths can go into hard rowing contests with no better qualification than just because they wish to, and fellows plainly weaker even than they can run helter-skelter ih sharp and trying foot-races, and against formidable antagonists, with great crowds to egg them on, so long there unquestionably will be risks for the persons so injudicious. And this, with the frequent distraction from one’s duties, and with one more thing, the only partial development which any one sort of racing brings'—for pot yet has the single exercise been discovered which brings into play all or nearly all the muscles of the body—these are probably the chief, certainly amopgthe chief, risks one incurs in turning athlete. Not a few men have managed > to safely pass each; but if the experience of every athlete could be frankly and fully told, there is too much reason to thinkthat the large majority, however they may have escaped' the first, have generally failed to avoid the other two. And if in the platte of these alluring but frequently hazardous contests, daily vigorous work could be done which would let the man stop when he was reasonably tired, and before the risk begins, instead of keeping on to exhaustion, and if that work could be so chosen as to build up parts now weak, and to daily for a brief period give the heart and lungs and all the muscles alike hearty but not straining work, there is little doubt that instead of interfering with more important duties, it would aid in fulfilling them; that instead of neglecting some muscles of the man and developing others abnormally, <it would symmetrize him, and make him strong all over; and that he need never fear permanent injury, because he had done nothing to invite it.— William Blaikie, in Harper's Mayor sine for May. Let me ppbllsh to the sheep-raising world a remedy against the destruction of sheep by dogs which was given me a short time since by a highly respectable and valued friend, himself an extensive wool grower. It consists simply in placing on one sheep in every ten of the flock a bell of the usual size for sheep. The Instinct of the dog prompts 'him to do all his acts in a sly, stealthy manner; his attacks upon sheep are most frequently made at night while they are at rest, and" simultaneous jingling of all the bells strikes terror to the doge; they turn their tails and leave the sheep, fearing the noise of the bells will lead to their exposure. The ratio of bells may be made to vary according to the size of the flock.— Richmond Whig. The Mormons havq planted a colony of 150 believers on the Little Colorado, Arizona. They are provided with machinery for a complete woolen mill, now being erected. They have saw-mills to build their houses and improvements, flour-mills and sugar mills, also a tannery, flockii of sheep, seeds and farming implements, with food to last till harvest, and with no Jack of capital to attest an earnestness that knows no failure. ——■ »<— —. Therm are about forty’female physicians in Philadelphia in full practice-