ATHLETIC EXERCISES. 105 



thesis is supported by the well-known facts that sailors, 

 ploughmen, butchers, and all persons whose occupations 

 are carried on in the open air, and whose perspiration is 

 therefore free and copious, enjoy a remarkable exemp- 

 tion from pulmonary complaints; on the contrary, two 

 thirds of the working tailors of London, taking them as 

 an example of the sedentary class of artificers, are be- 

 lieved to die of pulmonary consumption. Let us then — principally 

 endeavour to remove this inert condition of the skin, not ^Y inattention 

 by internal sudorific medicines, which would only relax ^j^g g^i^^ 

 it more, nor by keeping the body constantly bathed in an 

 atmosphere of its own perspiration by casing it in flannel. 

 Rather by daily exposure to the air bath, during which 

 the surface of the body should be rubbed with a hard s 



flesh brush, either by the hands of the patient, or by 

 those of an assistant till the whole skin glows. From a 

 sedulous attention to this practice, which when regularly 

 persisted in becomes very grateful, combined with a light 

 dry diet, and unremitted exercise in the open air, I have 

 seen such an alteration produced in the constitution, as 

 leads me to hope that much may be effected in repelling 

 the attacks of this disease, if the proper means be suffi- 

 ciently early employed. 



Should this sketch of the mode of training the antient Conclusion. 

 Afhletw, which suggested these few hints concerning the 

 influence of diet, air, and exercise, in counteracting cer- 

 tain diseased states of the constitution, coincide with your 

 plan of diffusing a more general knowledge of the means 

 of preserving health, and preventing disease, I trust you 

 will accept of them as a mark of my respect for that wish 

 to ameliorate the condition of mankind, which appears 

 on this occasion to have directed your eiforts. 



I am, Sir, 

 Your most obedient servant, 



A. P. BUCHAN. ^ 

 Vercij Street^ London^ 



20th3Iarch, 1806. 



P.S. The preceding observations being intended to The moral cf- 

 indicate the physical changes possible to be effected in the fects of boxing, 

 human constitution, by a peculiar course of diet and exer- ^^* 



Vol. XV,— Oct. 1806. . P , cise 



