THE PHYSIOLOGY OF BODILY EXERCISE.* M. FERNAND LAGRANGE has made
a fairly successful attempt to express after a methodical and scientific manner the causes, the mechanism, and the effects of bodily exercise. To us, the study should have no ordinary interest, for we pride ourselves on being an athletic nation, and, indeed, owe more than we can tell to centuries of games and sports. We have preserved unflaggingly that most ancient and healthiest of all exer- cises, hunting, and we hunt now more than ever, and as no nation ever did before or is likely to do.
The first effect of violent exercise is to make us breath- less ; and how many of us know the true cause of this un- pleasant sensation ? The human body is the most perfect of machines, but it is a machine which produces carbonic acid ; and to throw off this poison, with which violent muscular exertion saturates the blood, and to replace it with oxygen, more air must be inhaled by the lungs. Hence the cause of breathlessness is a physiological, not a mechanical fact, and the lungs are, after all, performing their proper duty as being partly an excretory organ. We become breathless, not from the mechanical effect of running, else the two would be co-existent, and breathlessness would cease with the exercise, which is not the case ; but because we try to expel the poisoned air from our lungs by a rapid succession of breaths. The peculiar rhythm of breathing in breathless persons, the in- spiration being longer than the expiration, is, to put it plainly. because the need for purifying the blood in the lungs is more overpowering than the need for expelling the vitiated air.
And why, then, do we need exercise ? Because exercise pro- foundly affects the assimilation of food, and hence the nutrition of the body. Both the badly nourished and the too well nourished, thirst, physiologically speaking, for exercise, for the one increases his nutritive power, and the other gets rid of his superfluous materials, which in his case are violently burned to work the machine. The most interesting part of this study of exercise is the mechanism of exercise, using the phrase in its widest sense. We compel a muscle to work by means of the will until the fatigue caused by the production, according to M. Lagrange, of various alkaloids derived from the work, warns us to stop. To some men is given the power of making their muscles work beyond the point at which the will of most men can produce no further stimulation ; but the result is serious, and the penalty often fatal. Bodily exercise seems in some way able to augment the power of the will, enabling the practised athlete to perform great feats with ordinary muscles. To account for this, the avalanche theory has been advanced, which supposes the nervous force transmitted by the will to swell as it travels along. It is interesting to speculate as to the heredity of this power ; if it is not hereditary, how must we account for the nervous and muscular power possessed by some untrained men ? And here we enter upon the question of strength and endurance, and the quality of physical courage, which is undoubtedly in part the result of physical training. The type of the strong man, to M.
* The Physiology of Bodily Brerciss. By Fernand Lagrange. "The Inter- national scientific ficrie=." Long.:in : Kogan Pail, Trench, Ti Ubner, and Co. Lagrange, is the prize-fighter, and certainly he is a most impressive individual if we consider his fighting powers. In one celebrated prize-fight, a combatant was knocked down 196 times before he allowed himself to be beaten ; and in another, of still more famous memory, one of the men eon- tinned the fight with a single arm. M. Lagrange is astonished at this " tenacity of fighting almost beyond belief," and we may perhaps admire it, though it has its counterpart in the lower animals. Nor is such tenacity confined to prize-fighters ; at school, an equal and perhaps more admirable " pluck " will have often been observed. A famous pedestrian, again, Captain Barclay, once performed a feat which deserves to rank high among the efforts of human endurance. He spent a whole day shooting grouse on the mountains, and after dinner walked to MT, sixty miles; after transacting some business on the fol- lowing morning,he walked sixteen miles to a ball, and danced the whole night. At 7 the next morning, he walked back and spent the day partridge-shooting. When this was finished, he had travelled a hundred and thirty miles, and during this time had not slept at all. Power to endure is most usually the result of habituation to work, though again and again we are reminded by extraordinary instances that the power to endure is an unknown quantity, that its presence or absence cannot be predicted, and that the consequent exhaustion does not agree with the reasonable laws of overwork and fatigue, but some- times ignores them altogether. And when we come to study the causes of endurance, not even the use of drugs clears the subject. The Peruvian, with the aid of coca, performs arduous work under a broiling sun for a long period; and the native of the Himalayas, with the aid of hemp, travels great distances without food or rest. Despite a continuous drain on their nervous and muscular power, these men continue to put forth both, and do not suffer proportionately.
Stiffness, M. Lagrange tells us, is due to the presence in the muscles of the poisonous products of their own work, and there seems to be a remarkable correlation between stiffness and the production of urates. Many facts and observations seem to prove that in stiffness the body is poisoned, though so far, uric acid is the only, or at least the only ultimate, product which can be identified. Overwork, M. Lagrange divides into two kinds,—the horse driven till it dies is an example of acute overwork, or asphyxiation ; the hunted deer which is taken when utterly exhausted and then dies, is an example of sub-acute overwork. The soldier of Marathon who brought the news of the victory to Athens is an example of sub-acute overwork. What M. Lagrange wishes us to understand is, that the horse dies of breathlessness, and the deer and the soldier from the poisoning of their blood by bodies which could not be eliminated by the lungs. There may well be a difference, however, between these two ; the soldier of Marathon might have run further, how much further we cannot tell, for he carried the glorious news, and he could not succumb to "sub- acute overwork " till his message was delivered,—then, and not till then, could physiological laws take their course. Physiology has to draw the line somewhere.
Training is the method by which we obtain the beat result from the muscles ; habituation to work also has the same effect, and a much more lasting one. According to M. Lagrange, the advantages of training are completely lost by a relapse into former habits. This does not seem to us strictly true; the fat may be replaced, but the muscular strength gained would remain some time. Habituation to work simply is the more valuable of the two methods ; though it might be difficult to explain why it should be so, from a physiological point of view.
The most important question which M. Lagrange raises is that of the relative value of different exercises. He classifies walking slowly as a gentle, walking fast as a moderate exercise, and running as a violent exercise, and then gives us the respective values of exercises of speed, strength, and endurance, having regard to their physiological and physical value. The physiological classification would separate them according to the quantity, the quality, and the mechanism ; but these elements are combined in so complicated a manner in the innumerable varieties of exercise, varying also in every individual, and according to his state of health, that such an analysis would be impossible. There are three con- venient divisions of bodily exercise, speed, strength, and endurance, and the greatest of these is speed. A swift and graceful runner to the eyes of most of us is the most pleasing exponent of manly beauty, and it is in accordance with natural laws that the runner more nearly attains to the beauty of perfect physical form than any other athlete. And what does the physiologist say P Exercises of speed increase the size of the thorax and the capacity of the lungs. The lower limbs have naturally the strongest muscles, and by attaching to them their proper value, the athlete secures the most symmetrical and harmonious development of the human form. The wrestler is the type of the strong man, and in him we see the superior nutritive value of exercises of strength. The great walker comes nearest to the definition of the enduring man, and exercises of endurance have a wider usefulness because they do not demand a rapidly accumulated effort. The vital distinction which the physiologist makes in comparing these three is this : the runner, though he may not gain strength, gains power of lungs, the highest aim of all; the wrestler and the boxer also gain this and strength, but at the price of great muscular effort ; and the walker gains what may be termed vaguely, " constitutional " strength, and a precious supply of oxygen, but does not call upon his lungs for extra effort. Thus a man must choose for himself, and on the conditions of the great organs of the human economy must depend the relative personal value of these classes of exercises.
The varieties and combinations of muscular movement that constitute sports and pastimes have widely differing values. We may take it as incontrovertible that the more ancient and simple a game is, the more will it conform to the wants of health and physical development. If we pass in review sports and pastimes, a moment's glance will enable us to weigh the cost and the gain of each. Hunting both develops and requires the qualities of speed, strength, and endurance ; and so we find the hunter to be the highest development of physical vigour and bodily health. His life is a joyous one, for no cares trouble him ; he takes no thought for the morrow, and the life of the animal reaches in him the utmost perfection of which it is capable. The mountaineer possesses the ideal chest, the capacious thorax which allows the heart and the lungs to work with ease, and also the power of endurance the Indians of the Cordillera of the Andes are noted for the size of their chests, the result of a double cause. Wrestling and boxing and running we have discussed. Swimming, per- haps the most regular of all exercises, tends towards a proper proportion of the figure and sound lungs. Rowing, as we know, effects a powerful development of more muscles than would seem likely at first ; it strengthens and straightens the back, and no exercise, considering the violence of the efforts made in its pursuit, is less likely to do harm ; and the oarsman may look forward to sound health and a long life. Yet the rower must beware of overworking the heart, as must also the runner. The dhoolie-bearers, the African messengers, and the too vigorous oarsman, suffer from dilatation of the heart. The human body is a machine, and is great above all other machines, for it can strengthen itself ; but this incalculable value corresponds to an equal danger, it would be wrong to call it a flaw,—it can be overworked. Riding, as it tends to preserve a firm and upright yet elastic carriage of the body, is an important element in the education of physical grace ; but let none con- found it with the science of the jockey, whose round back is a disgrace to the human shape. Among games, cricket and football stand out in popular favour, and the consideration they enjoy is only just. Cricket, which requires speed and the co-ordination of nearly all the muscles, means, owing to the circumstances of the game, a return to primitive conditions of life, if a plentiful supply of fresh air be one of them. Football needs speed, strength, and endurance, and combines the exer- cises of running and wrestling in some degree ; and to football Englishmen owe a great deal. M. Lagrange mentions neither cricket nor football; this, perhaps, is not a matter for sur- prise, though from the physiological point of view it is a serious omission, because cricket, of all games, should receive the warm support of physiology, and football because the opinion of a physiologist on its advantages and disadvantages would be of great value. For it is a dangerous game, and its advocates must not forget to reckon the innumerable shocks and sprains, often of a lasting nature, to which it exposes the bones and the great organs of the body. All those games in which the ball is struck directly or indirectly by the arm, have the same advantages, in an inferior degree, of cricket. Gymnasts who use chiefly the upper part of the body, do so contrary to the law that the lower limbs, possessing the most powerful muscular masses, should have the most work allotted to them. The modern gymnast gains an extraordinary suppleness, but often at the cost of physical disproportion; and he is not at all the ideal yvicvaern; of those admirers of the beauty of physical outline, the ancient Greeks. Fencing, which lowers the shoulder in use, flattens one side of the chest, and produces vaulting on the other, and, moreover, in young and weakly subjects produces a lateral curvature of the spine, would have been abhorrent to them. The editors of Fencing, in " The Badminton Library," do not, we see, as much as mention this deformity,—surely one they ought not to have ignored.
We hope it will not seem a paradox to remark that the human form develops naturally when left to itself. How, then, can we imitate the ancient athletes P The physical grace of the Greek was not the agility of the gymnast, nor the alertness of the fencer. It was a grace due to simple and harmonious exercises ; he ran races, he wrestled, he jumped, he threw the javelin, he drove (standing) the chariot, he boxed, he shot with the bow; and in these exercises all the muscles of the body assist, and the feet rest on the ground,—hence a natural proportion of form which could develop into sym- metry. It will be said that the Jews, physically a fine race, never take exercise ; but it is probable they may inherit their physique from an active ancestry, their habits having now, of course, changed completely. Weak Jews, too, have been steadily killed out for sixteen hundred year. Nevertheless, if facial beauty, which is probably due to a sort of sensitiveness, has been denied to the English, theyare the healthiest race in the world, and owe to the habit of " taking exercise " and playing games, a physical strength and courage, and a power of endurance, and their concomitants, energy and a power of organisation, which tend to make them, collectively and individually, superior to other races. The prize-fighter is, after all, a useful type to build a nation on.
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