486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



through, the nervous system. Whether this is due to an increased 

 supply of richer, purer blood, or whether the continual discharge 

 of motor impulses in some way stores up another variety of force, 

 we do not know. One thing is certain, the victim of neurasthenia 

 is very seldom an individual who daily uses his arms for muscu- 

 lar work ; with this, the limit of hurtful mental work is seldom 

 reached. 



It seems evident that arm rather than leg movements are es- 

 sential to increased productive power. If these are neglected, the 

 man as a social factor degenerates and falls a prey to his stronger 

 fellow-man in the race for supremacy and productiveness. It may 

 be remarked that American gout, that condition of the blood 

 which causes our English cousins pain in their feet, and Ameri- 

 cans universal pains and increased irritability, has one sovereign 

 remedy so simple that few will take it, and this is daily system- 

 atic arm-exercise. It is Nature's sedative, for which she charges 

 nothing the next day, but gives us sleep instead of insomnia, and 

 cheerfulness in place of discontent. A man may walk in an hour 

 four miles, on a city sidewalk, and reach his desk tired, exhausted 

 of force, and better only for the open air and a slight increase of 

 the circulation. Had he spent half that time in a well-ordered 

 gymnasium, using chest and rowing-weights, and, after a sponge- 

 bath, if he had gone by rapid transit to his office, he would have 

 found his v;^ork of a very different color, easier to do, and taking 

 less time to perform it. The view for some time held by Hartwell, 

 of the Johns Hopkins University, Sargent, of Harvard, and others, 

 that arm-exercise prevents or does away with nervous irritability, 

 and at the same time increases the absolute capacity for mental 

 work, has not been sufficiently urged or accepted. 



The remedy for this state of things is to cause every man and 

 woman to realize the importance of arm-exercise. Make it com- 

 pulsory in schools, and popular after leaving school. If one's oc- 

 cupation does not require it in itself, muscular exertion of some 

 kind ought to be taken daily, with the same regularity as food 

 and sleep, for all three are necessary to the fullest development of 

 our powers. 



A second injurious influence, which pertains exclusively to 

 city life, is incessant noise. This may not be very intense at any 

 time, but, when continuous, it acts as certainly upon the nervous 

 system as water falling upon a harder or softer stone. Recent 

 experiments upon animals subjected to the sound of a continu- 

 ously vibrating tuning-fork for a number of hours, one or two 

 days in all, show that the first effect is that of an irritant to the 

 nerve-centers, as certainly as an acid or an electric shock is to 

 muscle-fiber. A secondary visible effect is opacity of the crystal- 

 line lens of the eye. 



