Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    742/896 (page 54)
    with the general impressions of their various head-masters and school-doctors. These are, of course, all given as the result of individual experience, and without any of these writers being aware of the opinions expressed by the others. Let me quote a few of the answers to Question II. From the head-master of a school of 300 comes : Football is unquestionably the most dangerous school amusement, but the percentage of acci- dents with us is extremely small. A medical attendant says: My experience extending over a period of upwards of thirty years, in a school of about, on an average, 600 boys and adults, shows con- clusively, that while accidents are inevitable in so large a com- munity living within a limited space, yet that the thorough regulation and enforcement of proper exercise tends to give security against some of the more severe forms of accident. Dur- ing one period of the history of the school, when games and athletic exercise were under no kind of efficient regulation, serious accidents were of no rare occurrence. Again: Of all games football exposes the player to the greatest risk of injury; the more rapid movement and closer contact of the bodies of the players in this game, of necessity increases the chance of injury. . . . . The gravity of injuries is greater in this than in any other game or sport. In a P.S. he adds : Since the year 1849 none of the accidents that have happened in the school games have proved to be of life-long injury. Two boys who were very near to death in football are now strong men; one, I believe, is a missionary, the other in the army. A head-master says: We have had several cases of fractured clavicle, and many sprains. They have always been the effect of football or gymnastics, chiefly the former. Eegular games are not more liable to accident than casual practice. Again: The worst mischief is done when no organised game is being played. Another says: Accidents have generally occurred when by reason of the weather the boys were unable to play in the field. Another from a well-known school says : Accidents seem to me more to be apprehended from confused hustling than when any regular game is played uuder strict rules. From one of the large English public schools comes the opinion of the head-master : I believe they (athletic exercises, &c.) cause fewer accidents than would