THE VIRTUE OF WALKING.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 221, 4 October 1906, Page 4

THE VIRTUE OF WALKING.

" On the Means for the Prolongation, of Life"-is the suggestive title of a book by Sir Hermann Weber, M.D. The author takes a wide survey of his subject, and his. teaching is moderate and helpful. The appended passage is of considerable interest on the virtues of walking:— " People to whom the so-called ' walking without an object' is tedious must endeavour to find an object. I often succeed, though sometimes only with difficulty, by explaining the ways by which open-air exercise influences the nealth of the body. When persons understand this their knowledge stimulates "their will, and the will overcomes the dislike> and increases their power, and gradually the feeling of improved health pleads to actual enjoyment of that which had formerly been tedious to. them. ■

" Still more beneficial than the once-a-week extra exercise is the plan of taking once or twice a year a walking or climbing tour of three to four weeks or longer, in mountainous districts/1 especially in the neighbourhood of and on glaciers, with three to six, or occasionally even eight hours' active Walking or climbing on .most days of the week, provided that the organs of the body are free from disease and that they be gradually accustomed to the increased work. The amount of benefit to be obtained .from such tours, if judiciously arranged, can scarcely be exaggerated. They exercise an actually rej uvenescing influence, in which every organ of the body shares more or less, i^rom the brain to the skin and hair. The power for mental work is increased, the view of life's duties and its worries and hardships is corrected, and often I have observed that the hair of the head and beard, when,commencing to turn grey, has resumed, after good courses of climbing, more or less of the original colour. The action of the heart is likewise in all ;pers6ns tangibly improved, in some ±q an;: astonishing degree. . Again and again I have witnessed in many others, and"in"myself, that while before the climbing iour a. slight exertion in walking caused the pulse to rise from 60 and /6a to 110 and 130, the same, or even greater, exertion produced after the climbing tour only a rise of 80 to 85. The pulse tracings by the sphygmograph are equally significant. The removal of waste products, to which I have already alluded as an important effect of all forms of exercises, is most thoroughly accomplished by these walking or climbing tours. I must, however, fay stress on th© condition already mentioned, that the different organs of the body must be sound if such courses of extra exercise are to be practised. I have repeatedly seen great harm follow them in persons affected with diseases of the heart, the small blood vessels, the lungs, the liver, kidneys, and spleen; in various forms of diabetes, albuminaria, and anaemia. For these, too, open air and exercise are very beneficial, but their use must be carefully arranged according to the individual condition."