On Gymnastic Exercises, 321* 



to enter upon it. In tnith a vigorous and healthy constitution, 

 with all the bodily and animal powers in their full perfection, 

 which can only be acquired and preserved by properly-regu- 

 lated exercise, are quite compatible with the nobler and more 

 distinguishing faculties of human nature. 



The question of the necessity of exercise to the preservation 

 of the form may be considered in a point of view which bears 

 directly on the subject of distortion. 



It is a law of the animal economy, " that the exercise of an 

 organ is necessary not only to its perfection but even to its pre-« 

 servation." This is often exemplified by parts which are not 

 kept in due activity ; for if they are not exercised, they degene- 

 rate so as even to lose their peculiar characters. For exam- 

 ple : as long as a joint is kept in activity, the apparatus con- 

 tinues perfect ; but when the motion of the joint has ceased 

 for some time, all its complex parts degenerate ; their peculiar 

 characters and structure disappear. In a joint which has be- 

 come stiff or anchylosed, the character of every part is changed ; 

 — the bone is no longer hard, but softened and cellular ; and 

 the bursas, the capsules, and the ligaments, form one indistinct 

 mass of cellular membrane. 



The converse of the above proposition holds — that, by ex- 

 ercise, the organs may be renovated, or even new ones may 

 be formed. If a bone be dislocated, new cartilages, capsules, 

 bursse, sheaths, ligaments, all may be formed ; and if these 

 parts, constituting a new joint, be kept in activity, although 

 they may not have the regularity of the apparatus of the origi- 

 nal joint, they assume all the characters of the several parts. 



A variety of facts show that not only the muscles and liga- 

 ments, but the bones, arteries, and nenes degenerate if they 

 are not duly exercised ; and it is even possible to distinguish 

 between the bones of a person who has died in full vigour, and 

 of those who have been long bedridden*. If a soldier in active 



* A German author makes the following remarks on the skeletons 

 still exposed on the field of battle at Mm-ten, where Charles the Bold, 

 with his Burgundians, fell a sacrifice to the patriotic valour of the Swiss. 

 V The three hundred years during which they have been exposed, in great 

 measure, to the open air, have little affected their prodigious fimmess of 

 structure. Instead of mouldering down in a few years of exposure,, 

 they were evidently firmer than in the recent subject. From rubbing 



