STRAIN OF ATHLETICS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 4 July 1928, Page 3

STRAIN OF ATHLETICS

EFFECT ON ARTERIES. POPULAR MYTH EXPLORED. A remarkable operation to test the effect of athletics, on the arteries was described by lyr. Adolphe Abrahams, or Westminster Hospital, m a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons. It had been alleged, he said, that prolonged and strenuous athletics Jed to a deterioration of the arteries. Dr. Abrahams continued:— “I determined to have an artery removed. The operation was performed, and the specialist who carried it out told me that alter 27 years of athletics and hard exercise my artery was as good as that of a young man of 2b who .had never undertaken any hard exercise.”

Dr. Abrahams criticised the practice! of holding the Olympic Games during the hottest months of the year, involving long-distance running and prolonged effort. Temperatures of athletes under prolonged exertion often rose abnormally, and" the danger from this in hot weather was obvious. “1 have repeatedly warned the authorities of the very grave risks, but nothing has been done.” Dr. Abrahams said. “When the> Games were held at Stockholm a fatality there was due to heat.” He objected to the tendency to attribute deaths during athletic efforts to heart failure. All the great heart specialists had pointed out that a healthy heart could stand almost any strain. The cause of these fatal collapses | was not heart trouble but general conI dition over the whole body.