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.

    747/896 (page 59)
    Undoubtedly chills have been taken after football, both by players and spectators. Two have not only observed these results, but offer sugestions for avoiding them. One replies : Of course, and therefore great care is taken to prevent boys as far as possible from lying down on grass, standing in rain without coats or umbrellas. The other says : After games certainly, unless the rule of changing directly on getting home is enforced, but specta- tors at football are in greater danger than players. All our boy spectators at football have always either to play for twenty minutes after a match is over, or to run about a mile and a-half. Specta- tors at cricket should not be allowed to lie on the grass except on a rug. A similar reply runs: Chills occasionally occur to players from standing about after being heated by games. Not if flannels are worn, and changed directly after the games. Even in rainy weather I do not often trace illness to the game itself [cricket is worse than football here, owing to the standing about]. But to the spectators, the risk of cold is very great indeed. I consider that the looking on at football and athletic sports is our most fertile source of coughs and colds, and the illnesses following upon them. Those schools who have not observed ill effects from chills among the players or spectators are in the minority among the repJies, and I have thought it better to draw attention to this subject, so that precautions may be taken to avoid the risks from cold. By the next question, i.e., as to whether there was any addi- tional bad result from athletics and not included in the previous queries, I wished to see if heart or lung injuries were ever found, as theoretically they have been supposed to be caused by these games and athletic exercises. It is somewhat striking, however, that in no case is there any allusion made to the heart or lungs as affected in the way indicated. Most have simply negatived the question, while the few who have entered into it have mentioned other points. Only one of these I shall now bring before your notice, as the rest belong to a later part of our lecture. This one is : I think that constant scrimmages fostered by picking up at Eugby football strains a good many backs. The picking up was introduced by a number of thoughtless young men who cared only for their own game. The ball should only be picked up on first bound.