A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 1 : $b Pathology and general diseases
History
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 1 : $b Pathology and general diseases
Medicine -- Practice
IX. CLOTHING.--The hygiene of clothing is also a subject which may be
treated summarily in this paper. People wear what they can afford,
made according to the prevailing style. Diseases due to insufficient,
excessive, or badly-fitting clothing occur most frequently in women
and children, and the use of such clothing is for the most part due to
poverty or fashion, either of which is beyond the power of the
physician to successfully cope with. Here and there, in individual and
exceptional cases, he may be able to do a little good by advising
against tight lacing, high-heeled shoes, insufficient covering for the
chest or legs, etc., and he will find that a knowledge of the
peculiarities of the various styles of modern under-clothing will
sometimes be very useful. Men are, as a rule, comfortably and sensibly
dressed to suit their business and surroundings, and require no advice
on this subject.
X. EXERCISE.--The ease and completeness with which the functions of an
organ or of an organism are performed depend to a great extent upon
the frequency and regularity with which such functions are exercised.
Hence comes the importance of bodily exercise for the preservation of
health, and every physician meets cases of disease due largely to want
of work.
The term "exercise," or "bodily exercise," is commonly used as if it
referred only to the muscles, and the amount of exercise which a man
should take in a day is stated as equal to a certain number of
foot-pounds. The mere giving work to muscles is not, however, exercise
in the sanitary sense. A better definition is that of Du Bois
Reymond--viz. that "exercise is the frequent repetition of a more or
less complicated action of the body with the co-operation of the mind,
or of an action of the mind alone, for the purpose of being able to
perform such actions better." From this point of view it will be seen
that exercise relates quite as much to the nervous system as to the
muscles. When, for example, a student takes a walk over ground with
which he is familiar, and is at the same time so deeply engaged in
thought as to be practically unconscious of what he is doing, only
being recalled to himself, it may be, by arriving at his own door, the
exercise which he has had is but partial and insufficient. Going to
the extreme, we can, as Du Bois Reymond remarks, conceive of a man
with muscles individually exercised until they were like those of the
Farnese Hercules, and yet who would be unable to walk, much less
execute more complicated movements; for the proper co-operation of the
muscles, which is effected through the nervous system, is quite as
necessary as the force of their contraction.
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