EXERCISE AS A REMEDY. 631 



constructions of levers, pulleys, and weights, designed to exercise 

 special groups of muscles, as in the Sargent system of apparatus. 

 These reward effort, however, with depressing monotony, are 

 devoid of most of the beneficial general effects of exercise, and 

 appear to the writer to lack the elements of a coherent system. 



The old gymnastic idea, in the endeavor to accomplish certain 

 feats and to pile up large masses of muscle, ignored the intimate 

 co-operation between muscle and nerve, and the delicate balance 

 between co-operating and modifying muscular groups necessary 

 to build up a clear-sighted, well-balanced mind, .in perfect and 

 harmonious but largely unconscious mastery of the bodily move- 

 ments. The wise teacher and physician have small interest in 

 gymnastic feats, but direct muscular activity into those channels 

 best suited to promote harmonious mental and bodily develop- 

 ment and adjustment. 



With the Swedish system of exercises, devised by Ling and 

 elaborated by his pupils, totally different ground is reached. Peter 

 Henrik Ling was a fencing master, who became interested in ex- 

 ercise as a stimulus to development and as a remedy from observ- 

 ing its beneficial effects on his own health. He never took a med- 

 ical degree, but developed remedial exercises into a system, which 

 remains to-day as the basis of the most valuable procedures in 

 therapeutic kinesiology. He also devised systems of educational, 

 military, and aesthetic exercises. These exercises are based on the 

 physiological actions of the different muscle groups and their 

 relations to each other, and consist in free voluntary movements 

 executed by the patient in different positions and in a determined 

 order. The remedial movements include, in addition, passive 

 movements executed by a manipulator, and assistive and resistive 

 movements, in which the operator opposes resistance to the move- 

 ments of the patient, or vice versa. To these are added the vari- 

 ous manipulations of massage. 



The Swedish therapeutic exercises emphasize strongly the 

 local effect of movements, and hence have been called localized 

 movements, and are largely used for specific local purposes. They 

 proceed from the simple to the complex, aiming to establish cor- 

 rect fundamental attitudes and relations, and to invigorate and 

 develop deficient parts through exercises adapted to the particular 

 condition and situation. The value of gentle and passive exercise 

 in conditions of debility, and of the systematic progressive adap- 

 tation of the exercise to the strength of the patient, is recognized 

 and practiced. 



The Swedish system avoids the abnormal development of spe- 

 cial parts and the gratuitous feats of ordinary gymnastics, and 

 produces normally acting viscera, a graceful carriage, and good 

 muscular and mental control. One school of the Swedes, led by 



