Physiology of bodily exercise / by Fernand Lagrange.

  • Lagrange, Fernand, 1846-1909.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiology of bodily exercise / by Fernand Lagrange. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    effort, to give perfect precision to the movement; finally, the will comes into play to give the definite impulse to muscular activity. These are so many factors which increase the expenditure of nervous energy without making the muscle perform any more work. Automatism in movements economises work of the brain, as memory economises mental work. There are formulae which shorten mathematical work, by enabling us to dispense with several elementary operations. Similarly, by a series of automatic movements we are able to dispense with the attentive coordination of each muscular action of which the spinal cord has preserved, so to speak, the formula. If we now enter upon the practical application of the physiological facts we have just been discussing, we see at the first glance the great hygienic superiority of exercises which can be performed automatically. Economy of nervous energy, complete repose of the brain, absolute inaction of the psychical faculties, such are the conditions in which automatic exercise is per- formed. The work of the human system is then per- formed by the coarser parts of the machine, and fatigue is first felt by the subordinate agents of movement. The nerve-centres, having taken no part in the work, do not suffer from the discomforts which follow it. Fatigue, after automatic exercises, is purely muscular: it rather affects the body and limbs than the head and the nerves. Hence it is not difficult to understand the immense advantage presented by automatic exercises when we seek in muscular work a derivative for brains fatigued by intellectual overwork. We have so far endeavoured to establish scientifically, on a physiological basis, the peculiar characters which differentiate the exercises in which the brain is not con- cerned from those which need an effort of will and a work of co-ordination. It remains for us to fortify our theoretical deductions by the observation of facts, and for this it is necessary to appeal to the experiences of all those who have practised bodily exercises.