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.

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    if I may dare say so. The exercise of girls would require more care from those in charge than that of boys, to see in the first place that all do get a fair and regular amount of it, and in the second place to prevent some from taking too much. Often exercise for girls is brought into disrepute by the delicate and nervous ones over-straining their strength. It is just this keen nervous side of their nature, so sensitive and excitable, which exposes them to the risk of over-straining themselves mentally, and neglecting physical exercise altogether, that will lead them to take too much of it, if they are once strongly interested in it. A boy is not so easily moved, but with a comparatively small stimulus of com- petition or interest in mental or physical work a girl may be easily led to over-work, and do herself serious harm. Therefore, just in proportion as one would strongly urge physical exercise for girls to avoid the risks of over mental work in school, so one would caution against the risks of its over use as liable to bring into disfavour so excellent a cause. Only one other point occurs to me as specially deserving our attention just now, and that is the relation of brain work to exer- cise. It must be in the experience of most men, that the fullest amount of brain work and of muscular exertion cannot be carried on simultaneously without injury to whoever is bold enough to try the experiment. Only a certain amount of nervous energy is available in the system. This may be expended either chiefly in muscle work or chiefly in brain work, or in a proportionate combination of both, but not in the fullest possible amount of each at the same time. Therefore when extra brain work is called for, we should not expect from our bodies the full amount of muscular exertion that they are capable of. Sufficient be it for the time if we get enough exercise to keep us in active health, and when we again have an opportunity, we can very soon bring our muscles up to their wonted standard. But since this preponderance of brain work in our modern life is so frequently unavoidable, it becomes all the more necessary that when the frame is still in its plastic condition, it should be stamped with the best possible physical impressions. The condi- tions necessary to attain this are not at all incompatible with sound mental training and earnest brain work, but it cannot go