The effects of severe muscular exertion, sudden and prolonged, in young adolescents / by W. Collier.

  • Collier, William.
Date:
[1904 or 5?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The effects of severe muscular exertion, sudden and prolonged, in young adolescents / by W. Collier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/12
    The Effects of Severe Muscular Exertion, Sudden and Prolonged, in Young Adolescents. By W. COLLIER, M.D., F.R.C.P. Honorary Physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. In any attempt to ascertain the effect of severe muscular exertion, it is necessary, first of all, to study the physio¬ logical changes set up in the body by moderate exertion. Curiously enough, although the English are more addicted to athletic exercises than any other civilised nation in the world, no English physiologist, as far as I know, has ever systematically investigated this subject from a physiological standpoint and recorded the results of his investigations. The only works on the subject I am acquainted with are “ The Physiology of Bodily Exercise,” by Dr. Lagrange, written for the International Scientific Series, and “ The Physiology of Sport,” by Dr. George Kolb, a distinguished German athlete. As I wish to make my paper as practical as possible, I will start by discussing the effects of exercise on two of the most important organs of the body, the heart and lungs. Breathlessness. One of the objects of respiration is to get rid of car¬ bonic acid gas (C00) which is uninterruptedly manufactured in the body while life continues, and the accumulation of which in the body can cause death in a very short time. One of the results of muscular contraction is the pro¬ duction of C02, therefore the greater the number of muscles contracting and the more rapidly they contract, the more quickly does this gas accumulate in the blood. It would appear, then, that the most important factor in the production of breathlessness is the saturation of the blood with this gas. A sleeping man, when the majority of his muscles are in complete repose and the manufac-