UNIVERSITY OARS.*
THE spring of every year awakens a new and vivid interest in the question of University Boat-races, and it is by a natural transition that men's minds and tongues pass from discussions on sliding seats and the number of strokes in the minute to such a topic as the effect of the yearly race on the health of the rowers. Most readers will remember the letters which Mr. Skey wrote to the- Tiincs, and the controversy which followed. During that contro- versy, a suggestion was made which has been taken by Dr. Morgan, and has led to the publication of this volume. "If," said the Times, in a leading article, "we knew the proportion of these University champions who have since died, or become dis- abled, and if we also knew the mean per-centage of mortality and illness among men of the same age within the same period, we should be in a position to judge with some approach to certainty whether these matches do or do not tend to shorten life and weaken the constitution." We must say that Dr. Morgan has carried through this inquiry with very great industry. He tells us himself that he has had to write more than two thousand letters on the subject. Many of the facts which be has collected are of much value, and will serve to correct the hasty judgments and to refute the rash assertions which marked tbe late controversy. Yet we cannot think that the results of the inquiry are as conclusive as they were expected to be when the inquiry itself was suggested, and there is much in the book that strikes us as unsound and fallacious. We do not allude to any part of Dr. Morgan's own contribution to the book, although we might pause for some time before endorsing his recommenda- tion of hard rowing as the only safeguard against the next outbreak of Prussian cupidity. What we chiefly refer to is the loose and indefinite manner in which some of Dr. Morgan's correspondents speak of the causes of the death or the present conditionof particular rowers. It is not necessary to tell us that men who were shot by poachers, or killed in battle, or drowned in the Atlantic did not owe their death to rowing, but in other instances the information given is vague and unsatisfactory. One man is said to have died of "something unconnected with exercise." With regard to another, "it was the general feeling that his rowing had by no means shortened his life." Of another man who died of decline a, friend writes, "in my opinion, rowing never did him any harm." In some cases, no cause of death is assigned, while in others we have to be contented with, "I don't think rowing had anything to do. with his death." All this is the merest expression of opinion, and it may be of opinion based rather on a general prejudice in favour of rowing, than on any certain knowledge of the facts of the particular case. In like manner, what each man says of his present state of health is not always free from bias. It is not every man that can tell what he is, no man can tell what he might have been. We can believe that many of those who rowed in University races have felt no ill effects, but we need something more than a personal assurance to convince us that out of the 291 men composing the crews of the various boats 115 were actually "benefited by their exertions." Can we trust the men who have excelled in rowing to take an impartial view of its effects? Being generally men selected for their strength and endurance, they have started with considerable advantages, and it may be that they are comparing themselves with others who were much more heavily weighted. However, as we do not know the grounds on which they form their judgment, we must take it for what it is worth. It is certainly amusing to find one man complaining of having felt good for nothing, and having had pains in the region of the heart, who then adds, "I have come to the conclusion that all I require is violent exercise, and have just bought a boat, and am going to take to rowing again, although I have not had an oar in my hands now for eleven years." This rather reminds us of the requests for so many more boxes of the pills which are always appended in certain advertise- ments to the letters of persons announcing themselves perfectly cured by a single box. There is something much more satisfactory in the letter of another oarsman, who says, "Though, like an Englishman, I complain, and tell my friends that I am breaking up, they do not believe me, and I do not believe it myself." Frankness such as this commands perfect credit.
So much for the letters which Dr. Morgan has received. When we come to his statistics and his medical observations, we find much that attracts our attention. The first point is, as to the per-centage of deaths. It appears that 294 men rowed in the University Boat-race between 1829 and 1869, and that
• University Oars: being a Critical Inquiry into The .4fter-Ilealth of the Men who Rowed in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat-Race from the Year 1829 to 1869. By John Ed. Morgan, M.D. London : Macmillan and Co. 1873. of these 39 are dead. The chief causes of death were fevers, to which eleven deaths are attributed ; consumption and other forms of chest disease, which are responsible for 9; and accidental causes, which are fatal in 6 cases. With regard to fever, Dr. Mor- gan remarks that while the death-rate from that cause is unusually high, this is owing to the fact that " when fever attacks strong men they are more likely to succumb to the disease than others who may be endued with less robust frames." As the lungs and the heart are the parts most likely to be affected while rowing in a boat-race, Dr. Morgan gives us the per-centage of deaths due to 'consumption and heart disease among University Oars, contrast- ing it with the general per-centage which appears from the Registrar-General's tables. During the seven years which fall about midway between 1829 and 1869, and which may therefore be taken as affording a fair average, "40 per cent, of the deaths which occurred among males between the ages of 20 and .60 are ascribed to diseases of the icings, 289 per cent. being due to consumption, and 11.2 per cent. to other forms of chest affection. Among the University Oars at corre- sponding periods of life, the deaths.under this head did not exceed -23 per cent, of the total mortality, 17 per cent, being due to consumption, and 5 per cent, to the remaining varieties of pul- monary affections." In heart disease the per-centage of deaths among University Oars was rather above the average, but if the -evil was caused by the race, it was at all events slow in being -developed. On this subject Dr. Morgan says :— "Among the whole of the University Oars I have not been able to discover a single example of any of those rapidly fatal forms of heart disease which are occasionally met with in medical practice. Every physician who has had the advantage of being connected with a large hospital has probably seen a certain number of such cases. They have been observed, for example, among the class of mon known as coal- whippers, who are employed in loading vessels with coal. These men in prosecuting their calling are in the habit of catching hold of a rope suspended above them, and throwing themselves violently upon it ; in this manner, a sudden and excessive strain is thrown upon the heart, the valves of which are occasionally ruptured; or an aneurism may be formed either within its own walla or in connection with those of some -of the larger arteries ; or perhaps one of the ventricles may actually give way. In my own hospital experience I have seen some eight or ten such cases. The last which came under my observation occurred to a patient who 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, and from that moment he was never able to earn a shilling or to do an hour's work. Life, in so far as capacity for labour was concerned, was virtually at an -end, and death approached with rapid and certain strides. In most cases of this grave character the general features of the accident are pretty much the same ; it is sudden and overwhelming at the time, and though perhaps afterwards, when complete rest is enjoyed, the distress- ing symptoms may be temporarily alleviated, yet there is no prospect -of permanent relief ; for the fatal termination but too often proves painful in the extreme. Cases of this nature are forcible examples of -cardiac disease induced by too severe a strain, but among the 294 University Oarsmen I have not been able to discover that a single accident of this kind ever occurred as a consequence of the Boat-race."
We may pass from the question of health to another which must be important to parents and to the Universities themselves,—the -educational question. Is it true, as has been suggested, that the men who excel in athletic sports sacrifice altogether the mind to the body, and that the names which appear it the catalogue of the Boats are absent from the Class list? To this Dr. Morgan answers that at Oxford, "during the forty years which have elapsed -since the Boat-race was first rowed, about one man in every twenty- two who passed in classics, or 4-6 per cent, of the whole, has obtained a first-class ; and one in every 12-5, or just 8 per cent., a second. Among the 147 Oxford Oarsmen, six, or one in 24.5, about 4 per cent., of the number gained a first, and one in 11.3, about 9 per cent., a second. Hence, taking the first and the second together it may be said that at Oxford the men in the Eight, in so far as they inay be judged from their classical attainments, have shown them- -selves much on a par with the rest of the University. At Cambridge, on the other hand, the rowers who distinguished themselves in the Senate House were more numerous." Among the rowers in the University Eights who took honours, we find Bishops Words- worth and Selwyn, Dr. Merivale, Mr. Justice Brett, and Mr. Justice Denman. If we extend our view from the principal boat-race to athletics in general, we find that while the average of classmen in the University of Oxford is 31 per cent. of the whole, among cricketers it rises to 42, and among rowing men to 45 per cent. These figures may tend to throw some doubt _on the accuracy of bat portraiture of an ideal rowing man which, worked out with Mr. Wilkie Collins's mastery of detail, brought into such high relief the iniquities of the marriage law of Scotland. Both in this respect and in the other with which we have already dealt,
Dr. Morgan's work will be of much service to those who can give all his facts their due weight, and are not liable to be carried away by his marked predilection for rowing. Some such quali- fication as this is needed, though Dr. Morgan professes to have written impartially and without any personal bias. We give him every credit for honesty of purpose, but an old Oar cannot forget the excitement of past struggles, cannot be untrue to what was once his life and being.
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