PHYSIOLOGY OF STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE. 187 



the resisting power of these beasts. Doubtless, many of the re- 

 mains were ancient, for with the dry climate the decomposition 

 of bone is a slow process; and there are no, or but few, hyenas to 

 do away with the skeletons. The many parts lying about, therefore, 

 hardly give a true value of the casualties of the travelers, inas- 

 much as they represent an accumulation of disaster reaching proba- 

 bly far back in years. But, such as they are, they are a grim 

 and ghastly spectacle, and one not tending to give cheerful reflec- 

 tions to a leader of a caravan or to his hosts. 



[ Concluded. ] 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF STEENGTH AND ENDUEANCE. 



By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M. D. 



~\T7^HEN we read in the daily newspapers of the collapse of a 

 ' ' celebrated athlete, or the breaking down during training of 

 a young aspirant for arenic honors, we naturally surmise that funda- 

 mental knowledge of the physiology of the muscular mechanism of 

 the human body is either submerged by the overpowering desire to 

 make a record, or totally absent, among certain trainers and their 

 pupils. The want of such knowledge is the cause of many sad con- 

 ditions existing to-day among former strong and healthy individuals. 

 A comprehensive idea of the physiology of growth, of the physio- 

 logic and chemic relations of strength and endurance to age and con- 

 dition, would be of great value to the present horde of senile individ- 

 uals — not senile in years, but senile in vessels and tissues — who strive 

 to make their century runs, as well as to the adolescent whose cen- 

 tral nervous system is often permanently injured by overexertion in 

 attempting to make the records placed by carefully trained and intel- 

 ligent athletes. 



The human body is a wonderful piece of mechanism, which not 

 only renews itself constantly, but whose strength and endurance 

 and capacity for more work increase with increased use up to the 

 point at which use becomes abuse. At what time and under what 

 pressure this danger line is reached depends upon the individual. 

 However, the approach to this danger line is governed in all cases by 

 fixed and immutable physiologic laws. The athlete must always 

 bear in mind that the length of time that the muscle cell can con- 

 tinue to work will depend upon the rapidity with which the energy- 

 holding explosive compounds are formed by the cell protoplasm and 

 the waste products are excreted (Howell). In other words, the 



