BODILY EXERCISE.

Bodily exercise is one of the most important means provided by nature for the maintenance of health, and in order to prove the advantages of exercise, we must show what is to be exercised, why exercise is necessary, and the various modes in which it may be taken.

The human body may be regarded as a wonderful machine, the various parts of which are so beautifully adapted to each other, that if one be disturbed all must suffer. The bones and muscles are the parts of the human frame on which motion most depends. There are four hundred muscles in the body; each one has certain functions to perform, which cannot be disturbed without danger to the whole. They assist the tendons in keeping the bones in their places, and put them into motion. Whether we walk or run, sit or stoop, bend the arm or head, or chew our food, we may be said to open and shut a number of hinges, or ball and socket joints. And it is a wise provision of nature, that, to a certain extent, the more the muscles are exercised, the stronger do they become; hence it is that labourers and artisans are stronger and more muscular than those persons whose lives are passed in easy. occupations or professional duties.

Besides strengthening the limbs, muscular exercise has a most beneficial influence on respiration and the circulation of the blood. The larger blood-vessels are generally placed deep among the muscles, consequently when the latter are put into motion, the blood is driven through the arteries and veins. with much greater rapidity than when there is no exercise; it is more completely purified, as the action of the insensible perspiration is promoted, which relieves the blood of many irritating matters, chiefly carbonic acid and certain salts, taken up in its passage through the system, and a feeling of lightness and cheerfulness is diffused over body and mind.

We have said that a good state of health depends in a great measure on the proper exercise of all the muscles. But on

looking at the greater portion of our industrial populationartisans and workers in factories generally-we find them, in numerous instances, standing or sitting in forced or unnatural positions, using only a few of their muscles, while the others remain, comparatively speaking, unused or inactive. Sawyers, filers, tailors, and many others may be easily recognised as they walk the streets, by the awkward movement and bearing impressed upon them by long habit. The stooping position especially tells most fatally upon the health weavers, shoemakers, cotton-spinners, and dressmakers have generally a sallow and sickly appearance, very different from that of those whose occupation does not require them to stoop, or to remain long in a hurtful posture. Their common affections are indigestion, diarrhea, and dull headache with giddiness, especially during summer. They attribute their complaints to two 'causes, one of which is the posture, the body bent for thirteen hours a-day, the other, the heat of the shop.

Besides the trades above enumerated, there are many others productive of similar evils by the positions into which they compel the workmen, or by the close and confined places in which they are carried on, and others, again, in their very nature injurious. Plumbers and painters suffer from the noxious materials which they are constantly using, grinders and filers from dust, bakers from extremes of temperature and irregular hours. Wherever there is physical depression there is a disposition to resort to injurious stimulants; and the time of relief from work is generally spent, not in invigorating the animal frame, but in aggravating complaints, and converting functional into organic disease."

But there are others who suffer from artificial poisons and deficient exercise, as well as artisans and operatives,-the numerous class of shopkeepers: the author above quoted says, "Week after week passes without affording them one pure inspiration. Often also they have not exercise even in the open air of the town, a furlong's walk to church or chapel on Sunday being the extent of their rambles. When they have the opportunity they want the inclination for exercise. The

father is anxious about his trade or his family, the mother is solicitous about her children. Each has little taste for recreation or amusement. The various disorders, generally known under the name of indigestion, disorders dependent on a want of circulation of blood through the bowels, biliary derangements, constipation and headache, are well known to be the general attendants on trade closely pursued. Indeed, in almost every individual, this absorbing principle produces one or other of the various maladies to which I have alluded. More marked is the effect when anxiety is added. This greatly reduces the functions of the stomach; it produces flatulency, and often diarrhoea; it sometimes affects even the kidneys; it almost always, when long continued, produces permanent disease of the liver. Cancer of the stomach, moreover, and other malignant diseases, occur more frequently among the victims of mental depression and care."

The great remedy for the evils here pointed out is bodily exercise of some kind every day, and as much as possible in the open air. An opinion prevails that an occasional walk is sufficient to maintain the balance of health; but if the intervals of inaction be too long, the good effect of one walk is lost before another is taken. Regularity and sufficiency are as much to be considered with regard to exercise as to our meals or sleep. Sir James Clark says, that "the exercise which is to benefit the system generally must be in the open air, and extend to the whole muscular system. The house exercises now in fashion, and which have been dignified with fine names, are certainly a degree better, if directed with judgment, than the immoveable positions in which girls were formerly kept; but if they are to be made a substitute for exercise in the open air, they will prove highly injurious to the rising race of females. Without regular exercise out of doors, no young person can continue long healthy; and it is the duty of parents in fixing their children at boarding-schools to ascertain that sufficient time is occupied daily in this way. They may be assured that attention to this circumstance is quite as essential to the moral and physical health of their

children, as any branch of education which they may be taught."

By what fate so many of late fall in with an opinion of the advantage of wearing flannel I can't tell; but this I am well satisfied of, that it does hurt to two for one that receives benefit from it; and there is none to whom flannel is more prejudicial than those to whom it is generally prescribed, being weak, faint, or hectic people.

A consumptive gentlewoman in Sheffield, by the advice of a physician, putting on a flannel shift, though she was able very well to walk about the house, in two days' time was con fined to her bed (from whence she never rose), without any other evident cause than wearing flannel.

If what I have said be of force enough to persuade any to leave off wearing it, I would advise them to do it in a warm season; and at the same time, either make use of the cold bath, or the flesh-brush, which will prevent the inconveniences that would otherwise attend it.

I was persuaded to wear flannel next my skin, above ten years ago, for a severe cough that I had got; by which, I think, I received, some advantage, but after I had worn it a year or two, I found it very troublesome and prejudicial to my health; it made me so exceedingly tender, that I was not able to bear the least cold; and I found by the experiment of leaving it off, how much it disposed me to faintness, which I mightily suspected before, and therefore I attempted several times in vain to get quit of it, but could not, without some inconveniency greater than I was willing to bear, till about two years since, in a hot season, going into a cold bath, I left it off without any damage.

THE

WATER CURE JOURNAL,

AND

HYGIENIC MAGAZINE.

"Medical men must examine into the water treatment, and draw from its list of means remedies against some diseases at least."--DR. FORBES, in the British and Foreign Medical Review.

"To Truth I solemnly devote myself at my first entrance into public life. Without respect of party or of reputation, I shall always acknowledge that to be truth which 1 recognize as such, come whence it may; and never acknowledge that which I do not believe."-FICHTE.

"The object of our work is to make men wiser, without obliging them to turn over folios and quartos; to furnish matter for thinking, instead of reading."-SYLVA.

No. 26.]

SEPTEMBER, 1849. [PRICE 6d.

LONDON, September 1st, 1849.

Whatever may be the sins of the present hydropathic doctors, they cannot be charged with greater inconsistencies than those already imputed to our forefathers in the healing art, who saw they had reason and justification for publishing their observations as honourable disputants for the good of mankind.

The dietetic use of simple water must convince every one that it is the best and purest element with which we are acquainted since the beginning of the world, and the only one fitted for general purposes. As a fluid we have all drunk it and washed ourselves with it from our earliest days, and applied it to every use for which it was requisite; we cannot, then, surely be said to be strangers to such a blessing as water, nature's gift." We almost hold it needless to intimate that people drank water before they drank wine, as originally in

R