i 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enic gymnasium take their turn at the horizontal bar as they would 

 swallow the drugs of a public dispensary : they know that it is a 

 lesser evil, they know that the road to Styx is the alternative, they in- 

 tend to come every day, but the intolerable tedium of the crank-work 

 exercise soon shakes that resolution. The motive for exertion is too 

 abstract ; it lacks the charm of progressiveness and the stimulus of a 

 proximate, tangible, and visible purpose. The sham competition of a 

 regiment of invalids under the command of a turn-master does not 

 much sweeten the bitter broth ; it is still crank- work, minus the club 

 of the jailer, and nine out of ten hygienic gymnasts will soon find or 

 make a pretext for discontinuing their visits. How many out of a 

 hundred pupils of a young ladies' seminary would dream of perform- 

 ing their "callisthenics" at home? They would as soon walk on all- 

 fours, or ride on a dry clothes-line. But arrange a May-day picnic 

 in the mountains, and tbey will beat a kid in climbing up the steepest 

 rocks, and swing on wild grape-vines for hours together. 



It is likewise certain that fatigues can be far better borne if the 

 body is not encumbered with a surplus of calorific clothes. A pair of 

 linen trousers, a flannel hunting-shirt, and a loose necktie, make the 

 most hygienic summer dress. In the afternoon remove the necktie 

 and roll up the shirt-sleeves : it can do no harm to imbibe fresh air by 

 all available means, and let the cutaneous lungs share in the luxury. 

 Nor is there any excuse for the wide-spread fallacy that it is dangerous, 

 even in the most sweltering nights, to remove the bed-blankets. Kick 

 them into the farthest corner if they become too warm, and sleep in 

 your shirt and drawers, or under a linen bed-sheet. Half -naked laz- 

 zaroni sleep the year round on the stone terrace of the Museo Borbo- 

 nico and outlive the asthmatic burghers in their sweat-box dormito- 

 ries. The body effects part of its breathing through the pores. Paint- 

 ing a man with yellow ochre and copal-varnish would kill him as surely 

 as hanging him by the neck. The confined air between the skin of the 

 body and a stratum of heavy blankets gets gradually surcharged with 

 carbonic acid in warm weather even to the verge of the saturation- 

 point. The perspiration is thus forced back upon the body ; and the 

 lungs perhaps already weakened by disease have to do double work. 



Hunters may find it hard to return in time for dinner, and need a 

 rallying-signal. One p. m. is a good time for a general shouting- 

 match. Wake the echoes of the old mountains ; the spirits of the 

 departed Cherokees are tolerant offer a premium for the loudest and 

 ghastliest war-whoop, and depend upon it that no pulmonary disaster 

 will spoil the triumph of the victor. Blood-vessels are not ruptured 

 in that way, but by sudden movements or abrupt ejaculations, when 

 terror or a similar emotion has driven the blood back upon the heart. 

 But, while the mind is at ease, and the lungs not strained by a des- 

 perate exertion of the pectoral muscles, I would defy a consumptive 

 to yell himself into a haemorrhage. A vocal effort does not injure 



