Evils resulting from rowing : their cause and remedy / by John Charles Compson, M.D.

  • Compson, John Charles.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evils resulting from rowing : their cause and remedy / by John Charles Compson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    anything, simply because they have energy enough to attempt it—quite ignoring the fact that a human being, like a steam-en- gine, is only constructed to work up to a given pressure, and that if either of them is pushed beyond this point the consequences will most assuredly be disastrous. The ordinary time of preparation for a race is lamentably too short—too short even to be efficient—far too short to be safe, in a sanitary point of view. Habitual labour is essential to the pro- duction of that quality of muscle which forms a basis for violent and long-continued exertion. Such kind of muscle is not acquired even by weeks of training, and scarcely by regular gymnastics. Time is essential to its development; and as it is but rarely found either in the scholar or the student, in whom its want is too often compensated by the stimulus of pluck and emulation, the nervous and muscular systems being supported temporarily by an effort of the will, leaving them weakened, or permanently injured, when the strain is over.—Lancet^ Oct. 19th. The truth of these remarks is undeniable; their application is obvious. If we are to get the requisite quality of muscle, we must
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