CHAP. XXIV.

Gymnastics.

THE most celebrated physicians, and all who have studied what best conduces to the perfection of physical education, concur in thinking that bodily exercise, wholesome and temperate diet, and pure air, are necessary to health. By the judicious employment of physical agents, infirm adults may be rendered strong and healthy; whereas, ease and luxury only produce weakness. Unfortunately, parents, who should be their children's best friends, often prove their greatest enemies; they restrain their children from corporal exertion, which is so conducive to health and vigour, strengthens the muscles, braces the nerves, and promotes circulation. Nourishment alone does not suffice for the body; the separation of what is not converted into blood, is equally necessary. Perspiration should be induced, but it must be gentle, not excessive; hence the necessity of exercise; which also assits digestion, improves the appetite, regulates the bowels, and refreshes both body and mind. Persons who take regular exercise, are seldom afflicted with severe diseases; whereas, those who are afraid of exertion, are exposed more than others to the various ills that assail human life, with less

power to bear up against them. The most effectual preservative from disease is bodily motion; it not only removes the causes of disorders, but strengthens the body, gives it a proper tone, and enables it to resist contagion.

Whoever has noticed the effects of corporal exercise, and observed the great refreshment of mind and body arising from it, will no longer doubt its efficacy, or the impropriety of confining children too many hours in one room, with a view to improvement. Sitting and standing still, for too long a time, destroy the equilibrium of the functions of the economy, which bodily activity is necessary to preserve. These observations will be found generally useful; they are applicable to adults, though far more so to growing children.

The circulation of the fluids, moderate and well-directed exercise of all the limbs and muscles, are very necessary to promote growth. Stiffness of the body is often seen in persons who have not been accustomed to take proper exercise in their youth: this is a subject to which we cannot give too much attention.

Proportionate growth is conducive both to health and beauty; many people, for instance, have the chest too straight for the lungs, in consequence of not being able, during growth, to expand this part daily, by the forcible respiration caused by exercise; while the lungs in the mean time, continuing their proper growth,

begin to form cohesions, or to be compressed in a cavity too narrow for them.

Our opinion is, that gymnastics not only preserve and fortify the health generally, but we may assuredly state that, by their aid, an enfeebled body is strengthened. How contrary to reason is it for persons, whose nerves are relaxed, whose muscles are weakened, and whose health is impaired through violent passions, an inactive life, or intense study, to seek for restoratives in internal remedies. How much more likely is it that bathing, and moderate exercise, would restore vigour to the solids, and accomplish the desired

purpose.

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"If we look into a well-directed school," says a sensible writer, sixty or seventy pupils are seen in good health; fresh comers join the group; some are far from robust, others weak and infirm; in a short time, they become as strong as their companions. There may be occasional illness, but even this seldom occurs. Can we say the same of private families? one child or other is generally ailing; the reason is obvious; children at school having regular meals, good exercise, their bodies are strengthened, the circulation of the fluids kept up. Whereas, children at home are surrounded by luxury, sleep on feather beds, are carefully guarded against every change of weather, confined to their own apartments, and deprived of what is most conducive to health-exercise.

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Among the Greeks and Romans, the most enlightened people of antiquity, children were not considered well educated, unless they had followed the regular course of the gymnasium. We are not inclined to make a display of an easy erudition, by entering into minute details on the gymnasia of Greece; we need only say, that the application of gymnastics to the perfection of man, to the development of his faculties, and to the treatment of some diseases, may be traced to the remotest antiquity.

Medea, who, in mythology, was termed a magician, and had the power of restoring health, possessed no secret; her magical art consisted in well-combined exercises, adapted to the state of those patients who came to her for counsel. Herodicus, a native of Selymbre, who flourished 443 B. C., was surnamed Gymnastic, because he introduced gymnastic exercises into medical practice; he was brother to the famous rhetorician, Georgius, and Hippocrates was his disciple.

The life of Herodicus was protracted by gymnastic exercises; notwithstanding his natural debility, he acquired strength by using the same remedies for himself as those he prescribed for others; nevertheless, he appears to have gone too far; as, according to Hippocrates, Herodicus killed his patients by ordering too much exercise ; long walks, wrestling, and running. Herodicus professed to conquer the fatigue occasioned by illness, by another species of fatigue, which

sometimes brought on inflammation, pains in the side, and great paleness.

But if he erred in his system of gymnastics in chronic diseases, he was more fortunate in prescribing the means of preserving health, and prolonging life; his success drew forth rebukes from Plato. It may probably be thought surprising that this philosopher should have condemned Herodicus for preserving the lives of numerous infirm valetudinarians; but in a republic, where every citizen was expected to be useful, it was thought more advantageous for the state that the aged and infirm should perish.

Herodicus was at the head of an academy, where a system of gymnastics was pursued, and though at a very advanced age, yet he so judiciously combined these exercises with other means used in medicine, that notwithstanding his sickly constitution, he overcame the numerous ills that assailed him, continued to drag on a long life, reached an honorable old age, and rendered this, according to Plato, evil service to many other infirm persons.

Among those who have written on gymnastics, are Hippocrates; Galen, his learned commentator; Celsus; Avicene; Oribaze. After a very long interval, Mercurialis, in 1675, recalled the practice of the Greeks and Romans; their exercises, and the time fitted for them, and the machinery employed. After Mercurialis,