28 APRIL 1967, Page 31

Varicose veins

Sir: in your issue of 14 April (p. 421) John Rowan Wilson commented on the surgery appropriate to varicose veins, explaining that the cause was to be found in the giving of undue licence to the attrac- tion of gravity.

It is possible to make gravitation operate on the side of prevention,' as many physicians (though not the majority probably) have found out; physicians and individuals alike.

Prevention of varicose veins can be achieved throtIgh 'bicycling upside down'; that is, by standing on ones head (for most of us, standing on one's own shoulders) night and morning; raising the loins as well as legs and feet into the air while pretend- ing to bicycle. (No bicycle is used, of course.)