taken out of the crew or off the team and advised to wait for a year or more, or to refrain from athletic contests altogether. The heart-troubles will generally be found to be due to neglect of the principle already laid down, that training should be begun slowly and mildly, as one of its chief functions is to educate the vascular system to transmit with great rapidity a much increased volume of blood. With a healthy heart this process of education is unattended with risk so long as the work is regulated according to the gradually developing power of the organ; but when an attempt is made to force the process by unduly increasing the labor, symptoms of irritability or exhaustion will certainly arise.
Finally, it must be remembered that as it is dangerous suddenly to call the heart and lungs from a state of repose into one of great activity at the beginning of training, so after they have been gradually educated to unusually powerful action it is correspondingly harmful (though much less so) suddenly to return to sedentary or indolent habits.
Dr. Ball, from whose excellent article on the subject many of these suggestions have been taken, believes that a large proportion of the cases of impaired health in adult life which are ascribed to overwork or to injudicious training are the result of excesses and of inattention to simple hygienic rules immediately after abandoning training.
It seems unnecessary to argue further to show that moderate systematic exercise, applicable to any one and at almost any age, is of almost universal advantage when judiciously selected to meet the special needs of the individual, nor need the point be further emphasized that even our most active athletic sports may be safely engaged in by perfectly healthy young persons if preceded by such a course of training as has been indicated. But I must say a few words more in answer to the often-urged argument that, putting theoretical considerations aside and leaving the future to decide its own problems, there are many undoubted instances in which the pursuit of athletics as they exist at the colleges of this country and of England has been productive of serious and incurable disease or of premature death. That it has done so in a few cases cannot be denied, nor that it may have done so in a few others, but that its general tendency has not been harmful, nor its average results anything but good, can be conclusively established.
Rowing probably makes as much strain upon the vital organs and powers as any other form of physical exercise,—probably more than any except long running at high speed. So true is this that all experienced and intelligent trainers in selecting a crew will look much more closely after the respiratory capacity of the candidates than after their mere
