PHYSTCK-PTANO. 



203 



Having recorded the development, the examiner pro- 

 ceeds to estimate the total available strength, and for 

 this purpose applies a series of tests which show the 

 strength and capacity of the lungs, and the strength 

 respectively of the back, legs, thighs, arms, and chest, 

 forearms and abdominal muscles. The sum of these 

 is expressed in the same terms as those indicating the 

 development, and can readily be compared with it. It' 

 the strength is in excess of the development, the con- 

 dition is good, and the figures representing it have a 

 plus value ; if the reverse is the case, the condition 

 is poor, and the figures have a minus value. The per- 

 sonal and family history is also ascertained and recorded. 



The examiner is now in position to give advice, if it 

 is required, upon a number of important topics. He 

 ran point out to the man inclined to be pigeon- 

 breasted the value of the parallel bars or upright 

 bars ; he can suggest to the man with weak legs the row- 

 ing-machine or the river ; he can instruct the man with 

 the feeble or irritable heart to moderate his work, or 

 can advise the man with flabby muscles, slow circula- 

 tion, or undue accumulation of fat, to become more 

 active in his exercises. He can go further than 

 this, if need be, and can point out the proper diet 

 to those of gouty or rheumatic parentage, the proper 

 clothing to those inheriting a tendency to pulmo- 

 nary trouble, and in fact can apply the general rules 

 of hygiene or of preventive medicine to each indi- 

 vidual case, with the advantage derived from the pre- 

 vious thorough and scientific inspection. It would be 

 well, indeed, if every person in the community sub- 

 mitted to a similar examination by his family phy- 

 sician and received similar instruction. The effect of 

 such a course in warding off preventable disease could 

 hardly be overestimated. 



These examinations are repeated from time to time, 

 and the changes carefully noted. It has already been 

 conclusively shown that not only are greater feats of 

 strength accomplished when this system is properly fol- 

 lowed, but that they are done with vastly greater ease and 

 safety, owing to the symmetrical development of all 

 parts. Tables made out at Harvard by Prof. Sargent 

 (whose excellent papers on the subject are well worth 

 study) and extending over five years show, for instance, 

 taking the average of ten men as to " condition," and 

 expressing the result in figures, that whereas in 1880 

 their strength was in excess of their development as 

 126 to 100, in 1884 the proportion had risen as 476 to 

 100 ; in other words, their condition in 1880 being 

 taken at 126, it had in four years increased to 476, 

 or nearly fourfold. The improvement may be made 

 more readily comprehensible, perhaps, by taking a 

 special example of physical exertion. In 1880 there 

 was not a man among them who lifted over 393 pounds: 

 that was the maximum. In 1884 the maximum was 

 675 pounds, while the minimum was 427, or 35 pounds 

 more than the maximum of the first year. The con- 

 comitant improvement in health and vitality cannot be 

 expressed in figures, but was no less marked. 



This is the sort of athletic work which it seems most 

 worth while to preach or prescribe to the world. 

 Competitive athletics, though far less dangerous and 

 much more beneficial than is generally supposed, can- 

 not, for want of time and opportunity, be indulged in 

 by the majority of men who have entered upon the 

 real work of their lives. In college students their un- 

 due encouragement is objectionable on account of the 

 one-sided and partial development which they 

 bring, and because of the frequent distraction 

 from college duties which they cause when the 

 spirit of rivalry is allowed to become extreme. It 

 is desirable to foster and preserve the manly 

 games and sports in which for centuries it has 

 been the pride of the Anglo-Saxon race to excel 

 and to encourage their spread, not only among the stu- 

 dents of our schools and colleges, but among the dys- 

 peptic, nervous, and over-worked professional and busi- 

 ness men produced in such enormous numbers by the 



J strain and hurry and exciting competition of our mod 

 ern life. But, at the same time, the evils which sur- 

 round these sports should be avoided, the risk of strain 

 I from lack of proper preparation. i. e., of rational " train- 

 j ing " the risk of developing the competitive element 

 until all things are sacrificed for success in one particu- 

 lar direction or event ; the danger especially to be 

 ; guarded against in our colleges-^-of introducing the 

 spirit of "professionalism" which looks rather at 

 the prize now than at the means by which it was 

 obtained ; which abounds in quibbles and wrangles 

 and unkind feeling ; which reduces the masses to the 

 position of spectators and develops a few specialists in- 

 stead of a large number of general athletes. It should 

 be understood that the main object and idea of exer- 

 cise is the acquirement and preservation of health ; 

 that it is by far the most important therapeutic and 

 hygienic agency at the command of the physician of 

 to-day ; that it can be prescribed on as rational a basis 

 with as distinct reference to the correction of existing 

 troubles or the prevention of threatened ones as any 

 of the drugs of the pharmacopoeia ; that it increases 

 not only the muscular strength and vitality but also 

 the activity and vigor of the brain ; that it augments 

 incalculably the working power of the individual, and 

 that it enables him, by means of the health and strength 

 which it confers, not only to do better work than his 

 business or professional rival who lacks these attributes, 

 but also to do it more easily and safely, with the great- 

 est amount of comfort and pleasure and the highest 

 degree of usefulness to mankind. (j. w. w.) 



PHYSICK, PHILIP SYNQ (1768-1837), physician, 

 was born at Philadelphia, July 7, 1768. His father 

 had charge of the estates of the Penn family. After 

 being taught at the Friends' Academy, he went to 

 Europe to study medicine, and was private pupil under 

 John Hunter. He was made house-surgeon to St. 

 George's Hospital, obtained a diploma from the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, and graduated at the University 

 of Edinburgh in 1792. Returning to Philadelphia, 

 he was soon made physician of the yellow-fever hos- 

 pital during the epidemic of 1793, and one of the sur- 

 geons of the Pennsylvania Hospital. In 1805 he was 

 made professor of surgery in the University of Penn- 

 sylvania, and in 1819 was transferred to the chair of 

 anatomy, which he held for twelve years. He stood 

 in the foremost rank of his profession as a surgeon, 

 and was exceedingly popular as a lecturer. He was 

 honored with membership in several medical societies 

 of Europe. His only publications were in the med- 

 ical journals. He died at Philadelphia, Dec. 15, 1837. 



PIANO. The general history and construction of 

 v VTY the pianoforte are treated at length in 

 ' ee g4 (p ji the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. This 



> Ron ' article will therefore be confined to piano 



.AMI. IV I). ). _ . . . . n , * . 



manufacture in America. I he piano 

 was already known and manufactured in Europe when 

 this nation was still in its infancy. Yet the inventive 

 genius of the American, once applied to this instru- 

 ment, accomplished as much towards perfecting it as 

 all the other nations put together. It is generally 

 supposed that Benjamin Crehore, of Milton, Mass., 

 made the first piano produced in this country. This 

 was about at the beginning of the present century. 

 Adam and William Bent were making pianos in Bos- 

 ton as early as 1803. In 1810 the brothers Alpheus 

 and Lewis Babcock, who had learned their trade with 

 Crehore, joined with Thomas AppleUm and the Hoyts, 

 music dealers, under the firm-name of Hoyte, Bab- 

 cocks & Appleton. After the war of 1812 the Hoyts 

 went to Buffalo, John Mackay taking their place. 

 The film was dissolved about 1820. John Osborne 

 worked with this firm, and subsequently set up for 

 himself, and with him Jonas Chickering (1797-1853) 

 and Timothy Gilbert worked as journeymen. James 

 Stuart, a Scotchman, who had_ the reputation of making 

 an excellent piano, was associated for a time with Os- 

 borne, and later with Chickering. After the firm of 



