The effects of severe muscular exertion, sudden and prolonged, in young adolescents / by W. Collier.

  • William Francis Collier
Date:
[1904 or 5?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The effects of severe muscular exertion, sudden and prolonged, in young adolescents / by W. Collier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/12 page 3
    monary capillaries; a fight for place is going on in the lungs between the blood and the air; the heart beats more and more quickly but each ventricular systole is less vigorous, and as a result passive congestion of the lungs follows, and with it a marked obstacle to the elimina¬ tion of C02. The exertion cannot be carried beyond a certain point, as increasing saturation of the blood with C02 in the end brings about the cessation of all effort. We see here then at least two effects of severe muscular exercise either sudden or prolonged. A great strain is thrown on the air vesicles, leading to what may be described as physiological emphysema. Let me take the case of a university athlete, let us say in his third year a man who has gone in vigorously for athletic competitions, rowing or running as a schoolboy, and keeping up, or probably increasing, his athletic com¬ petitions regularly at the university. In such a case you will often find the following signs of this physiological emphysema : (i) Absence of apex beat either on inspection or palpation while at rest; (2) absence of all superficial cardiac dulness, due to the fact that the enlarged em¬ physematous lung completely covers the heart and pushes it away from the thoracic wall; (3) on percussion a hyper¬ resonant note above the clavicles and along the edges of the sternum. Now if the muscular effort which has brought about this emphysema is repeated too often or kept up for too prolonged a period, it is quite easy to conceive that it becomes converted into a pathological emphysema, leading in later life to the same evil conse¬ quences that we have in the emphysema of old-standing bronchitis or chronic asthma. Heart Strain in University Athletes. A second effect is to throw a great strain on the right side of the heart, on the right ventricle and right auricle, as passive congestion of the lung implies over-distension of the right ventricle. When we remember the enormous changes going on in the body of young adolescents, the rapid growth of the heart as well as all the other parts of the body, we should be safe in assuming that at no time during what may be called the athletic period, is the right side of the heart more liable to injury from over-distension, I think this
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3