HEARTS OF ATHLETES

Evening Star, Issue 20996, 9 January 1932, Page 17

HEARTS OF ATHLETES

THEY DIFFER GREATLY ACTION, NOT SIZE, COUNTS Dr Victor Gottheiner, roentgenologist, who invented X-ray motion pictures, has made a special study of the organic constitution of athletes, and a few days ago also filmed Finnish runner Nurmi’s heart in action, holds that athletic prowess is not so much a matter of how bodily organs are made, but bow they work and that the latter depends largely on what goes on in the brain. He threw on the screen for the Berlin correspondent of the ‘ New York Times ’ a reel showing the heart and lungs of the German champion runner, Paul Hempl, in contrast to Nurmi’s and pointed out that whereas Nurmi’s heart is more than double the average size, Hempl’s is barely avetage. . . . : “ Nurmi is in physical constitution an ideal athlete,” Dr Gottheiner said. “ But Hempl is so far from it—in fact, he is asthenic: his extraordinary performance shows what a man can qo when he has the will for it.” Dr Gottheiner said ho had started as a pathologist anatomist, but on the basis of his X-ray researches had conie to the conclusion that mere knowledge of the organic structure was almost meaningless. “ When a heart has been cut out of the body,” he said, “ it is just a chunk of moat. You must know it in action before you know anything useful aboat it. Take Nurmi’s heart: from a stafic X-ray picture of it no doctor could tell whether it was not enlarged by severe heart disease. A sick heart works unevenly. ” Look at the film of Nurmi’s heart, and you will see in what perfect rhythm it functions. It shows, indeed, an anomaly in its action unobserved in ordinary hearts; in pumping it turns on its axis through about a quarter circle, bub that Js only because it is so tig it otherwise would not find room in his chest. Nurmi developed his heart — which is perfectly sound—to that extraordinary size much the same rvay as another athleto develops huge biceps. But unlike the latter, Nurmi’s huge heart demands constant exercise; if he stopped training very likely he would fall ill.” i