October 3, 19 12] 



NATURE 



147 



sciousness lapses. The boy paralysed in almost 

 all his avenues of sense fell asleep whenever 

 his remaining eye was closed. The patient who lost 

 one labyrinth by disease, and, to escape unendurable 

 vertigo, had the other removed by operation, was quite 

 unable to guide his movements or realise his position 

 in the dark. Rising from bed one night, he collapsed 

 on the floor and remained there helpless until succour 

 arrived. 



A sense organ is not stimulated unless there is a 

 change of rate in the transference of energy ; and this 

 to be effectual must occur in most cases with con- 

 siderable quickness. If a weak agent is to stimulate, 

 its application must be abrupt (Sherrington). Thus 

 the slow changes of barometric pressure on the body- 

 surface originate no skin sensations, though such 

 changes of pressure if applied suddenly, are much 

 above the threshold value for touch. A touch excited 

 bv constant mechanical pressure of slight intensity 

 fades quickly below the threshold of sensation. Thus 

 the almost unbearable discomfort which a child feels 

 on putting on for the first time a "natural " wool vest 

 fades away, and is no longer noticed with continual 

 wear. Thomas ^ Beckett soon must have become 

 oblivious to his hair-shirt, and even to its harbingers. 

 It is not the wind which God tempers to the shorn 

 lamb, but the skin of the lamb to the wind. The 

 inflow of sensations keeps us active and alive and all 

 the organs working in their appointed functions. The 

 cutaneous sensations are of the highest importance. 

 The salt and sand of wind-driven sea air particularly 

 act on the skin and through it brace the whole body. 

 The changing play of wind, of light, cold, and warmth 

 stimulate the activity and health of mind and body. 

 Monotony of sedentary occupation and of an over- 

 warm still atmosphere endured for long working 

 hours destroys vigour and happiness and brings about 

 the atrophy of disuse. We hear a great deal of the 

 degeneration of the race brought about by city life, 

 but observation shows us that a drayman, navvy, or 

 policeman can live in London, or other big city, 

 strong and vigorous, and no less so than in the 

 country. The brain-worker, too, can keep himself 

 perfectly fit if his hours of sedentary employment are 

 not too long and he balances these by open-air exer- 

 cise. The horses stabled, worked, and fed in London 

 are as fine as any in the world; they do not live in 

 windless rooms heated by radiators. 



The hardy men of the north were evolved to stand 

 the vagaries of climate — cold and warmth — a starved 

 or full bellv have been their changing lot. The full 

 bellv and the warm sun have expanded them in lazy 

 comfort ; the cold and the starvation have braced thorn 

 to action. Modern civilisation has withdrawn many 

 of us from the struggle with the rigours of nature : 

 we seek for and mostly obtain the comfort of a full 

 bellv and expand all the time in the warm atmosphere 

 afforded us by clothes, wind-protected dwellings, and 

 artificial heat — particularly so in the winter, when the 

 health of the business man deteriorates. Cold is not 

 comfortable, neither is hunger; therefore wc are led 

 to ascribe many of our ills to exposure to cold, and 

 seek to make ourselves strong by what is termed 

 good living. I maintain that the bracing effect of 

 cold is of supreme importance to health and happiness, 

 that we become soft and flabbv and less resistant to 

 the attacks of infecting bacteria in the winter, not 

 because of the cold, but because of our excessive pre- 

 cautions to preserve ourselves from cold ; that the 

 prime cause of "cold" or "chill" is not really ex- 

 posure to cold, but to the overheated and confined air 

 of rooms, factories, and meeting-places. Seven 

 hundred and eleven survivors were saved from the 

 Titanic after hours of exposure to cold. Many were 

 insufficiently clad and others wet to the skin. Only 

 NO. 2240, VOL. 90] 



one died after reaching the Carpathia, and he three 

 hours after being picked up. Those who died perished 

 from actual cooling ot the body. E.xposure to cold 

 did not cause in the survivors the diseases commonly 

 attributed to cold. 



Conditions of city and factory life diminish the 

 physical and nervous energy, and reduce many from 

 the vigorous health and perfectness of bodily functions 

 which a wild animal possesses to a more secure, but 

 poorer and far less happy, form of existence. The ill- 

 chosen diet, the monotony and sedentary nature of 

 daily work, the windless uniformity of atmosphere, 

 above all, the neglect of vigorous muscular exercise 

 in the open air and exposure to the winds and light 

 of heaven — all these, together with the difficulties in 

 the way of living a normal sexual life, go to make 

 the pale, undeveloped, neurotic, and joyless citizen. 

 Nurture in unnatural surroundings, not nature's birth- 

 mark, moulds the criminal and the wastrel. The 

 environment of childhood and youth is at fault rather 

 than the stock ; the children who are taken away 

 and trained to be sailors, those sent to agricultural 

 pursuits in the Colonies, those who become soldiers, 

 mav develop a physique and bodilv health and vigour 

 in striking contrast to their brothers wh6 become 

 clerks, shop assistants, and compositors. 



Too much stress cannot be put on the importance 

 of muscular exercise in regard to health, beauty, and 

 happiness. Each muscle fills with blood as it relaxes, 

 and expels this blood on past the venous valves duririg 

 contraction. Each muscle, together with the venoiis 

 valves, forms a pump to the circulatory systern. It is 

 the function of the heart to deliver the blood to the 

 capillaries, and the function of the muscles — visceral, 

 respiratory, and skeletal — to bring it back to the 

 heart. The circulation is contrived for a restless 

 mobile animal ; every vessel is arranged so that 

 muscular movement furthers the flow of blood. 



The pressure of the blood in the veins and arteries 

 under the influence of gravity varies with every change 

 of posture. The respiratory pump, too, has a pro- 

 found influence on the circulation. Active exercise, 

 such as is taken in a game of football, entails endless 

 changes of posture, varying compressive actions — one 

 with another struggling in the rough and tumble of 

 the game — forcible contractions and relaxations of the 

 muscles, and a vastly increased pulmonary ventila- 

 tion ; at the same time' the heart's action is accelerated 

 and augmented and the arterial supply controlled by 

 the vasomotor system. The influence of gi-avity, 

 which tends to cause the fluids of the body to sink 

 into the lower parts, is counteracted; the liver is 

 rhythmically squeezed like a sponge by the powerful 

 respiratory movements, which not only pump the blood 

 through the abdominal viscera but thoroughly mas- 

 sage these organs, and kneading these with the 

 omentum clean" the peritoneal cavity and prevent con- 

 stipation. At the same time the surplus food meta- 

 bolic products, such as sugar and fat, stored in the 

 liver, are consumed in the production of energy, and 

 the organs swept with a rapid stream of blood con- 

 taining other products of muscular metabolism which 

 are necessary to the interrelation of chemical action. 

 The output 'of energy is increased very greatly; a 

 resting man mav expend two thousand calories per 

 diem; one bicycling hard for most of the day expended 

 eight thousand calories, of which only four thousand 

 was cove.-ed bv the food eaten. 



Such figures show how fat is taken off from the 

 body by exercise, for the other four thousand calories 

 conies from the consumotion of surplus food products 

 stored in the tissues. While resting a man breathes 

 some 7 litres of air, and uses 300 c.c. of oxygen per 

 minute, aeainst 140 litres and •^ooo c.c. while doing 

 very hard labour. The call of the muscles for oxygen 



