
9 
Until recent years little attention has been given.to the 
subject of fatigue. Function has always been a favourite study, 
but not over-function, or fatigue. Isolated facts were known, but 
the subject had not been opened up either from observation or 
experiment by any eminent worker. At the present time there 
are many toilers in this field, and I think the place of honour 
must be given to Italian Physiologists, both for their enthusiasm 
and for the originality of their methods. I shall this evening have 
to refer to their works, and especially to those of Professor Mosso. 
Mosso began by observing the effect of prolonged muscular 
work on quails. He left Turin, where he is Professor of 
Physiology, and went to the coast to Palo, that he might be 
present when these birds arrived after their journey from Africa. 
He found he was not alone in waiting for the quails. There were 
men present ready to pick up the birds that died from shock. 
The poor birds are in the habit of arriving almost blinded by 
fatigue, so that many, in the eagerness with which they seek the 
land, fail to see the trees, and dash themselves against the trunks, 
branches, or even telegraph posts, with such force that they kill 
themselves. It has since been proved that in great muscular 
effort, and extreme fatigue, cerebral anzemia is produced, and this 
want of blood in the brain diminishes the power of vision. 
Mosso says the poor creatures are so exhausted by their 
journey that their strength is just sufficient for their flight. When 
from a great distance they perceive the dark line of the land 
they are attracted by the white spots representing houses, and 
steer for them with such eagerness and impetuosity that they 
reach them, so to speak, before they have recognised them. On 
examining the bodies of many of these dead birds, they were 
found to be well nourished, with good muscular development of 
the pectorals; but their muscles, especially the great pectorals, 
which had done the chief work of the journey, were very pale and, 
like the brain, were in a condition of anzemia. 
This relationship between intense fatigue and anemia will 
explain to you why maids in large towns so often become anzmic. 
It is largely a question of fatigue of the heart from stair work. 
To return to the birds. A quail flies nearly nineteen yards 
a second, or thirty-eight miles an hour. The journey from Africa 
to Italy is much easier than at first appears, seeing that from 
Africa Sicily is visible with the naked eye. The distance from 
_ Cape Bon to Marsala is about eighty-four miles. A quail would 
do the journey in a little less than two-and-a-half hours. The 
distance from Cape Bon to Rome is about three hundred and 
forty-one miles, and this should take a quail, flying in a straight 
line, about nine hours. Another important observation made by 
Mosso was, that seeds found in the crop of the dead birds, when 
sowed in a garden, nearly always came up, and produced African 
