NO MORE FATIGUE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 3 January 1910, Page 7

NO MORE FATIGUE.

That knightly boast, "My strength, is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure," may soon be ? echoed quite prosaically, "My strength is as the strength of ten, because I have been scientifically ' vaccinated." Fatigue, that great human foe; harassing the powers of most industrious and worthy people, and driving the whole human race to sleep away a third of its time, has at last been attacked by an anti-toxin. We grow tired only because continued exertion ■ pauses "an accumulation of fatigue products in the system." Now a young German investigator has produced *"a toxio extract of fatigued muscle," and an anti-toxin, which he has injected into over-fatigued anmals to desperse those products, with the_ result that they ; recovered from their languid condition with quite | startling suddenness. He next ventured upon experiments with human beings,, giving the anti-toxin in the form of tablets; and those persons who took the dose immediately set to work,; and were found able to do nearly' a hundred per cent, more work than usual before they grew tired; while there were apparently no bad after-effects. The only fatigue antidote hitherto discovered by science has been : sugar. It was. pronounced some time ago, after laboratory tests, that the total increase in powers of work after the addition of sugar to a small meal was from, six to thirty-nine per cent. .Nature provides for, the continuous aotiVity of children by, giving; them good».parents, ~ who bring home proper' supplies of fruitrtoffee; Bulgarian rock, and other anti-toxic stuffs. If this precaution is neglected, Nature inspires the child with a healthy desire to explore the sugarbasin, or to climb into cupboards arid annex the jam. The misfortune is that grown-up years usually bring a | decline in the taste for sweets. We see^ men, (outside the German army, which marches now on sugar), work--irig through long, laborious days unsupported even by a single pepper-mint-drop! discovery of. the fatigue anti-toxin promises jjuite a new era of ease and comfort in exertion, both mental and bodily. "It is not, too much to suppose," says a writer on this subject, "that some day we ma&have a form of immunisation against fatigue that will be as effective as the present vaccination for smallpox." Or, at'least, times of stress may be beguiled by the scientific tabloid. There will be an antitoxin "specially prepared for those buying Christmas presents"; and another, marked "extra strong," to be taken "half an hour before carving the Christmas turkey."