Weak Muscles and Weak Hearts.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 879, 4 January 1889, Page 8

Weak Muscles and Weak Hearts.

The elevator was introduced in stores, hotels and dwellings to save steps and time. Now oomes a distinguished medical authority, Dr William A. Hammond, to point out some of the disadvantages of the lift. He declares that in consequence of inertia, or a disinclination to walk and take other exercise, most business men of the present day have weak muscles, and especially weak hearts. 4 If they are obliged to exert themselves to even a slight degree their limbs become exhausted and tremble like, a reed Bhaken in the wind, their respiration bef, oomes hurried and difficult, and .their pulse* beat at the rate of i 25 a|, minute or more, 1 Business men will gather around an elevator and wait several minutes for the machine, rather than asoend one or two flights of stairs. They will seek residences close to horse-oar lines and run at the top of their speed a few yards to catch a oar, rather than walk, when they have - plenty of time; They gesticulate wildly, and get red in’the'face if the car goes by without stopping.! s All these incidents come within: the; range of almost daily observation; The record , of deaths among business men .from failure of (heart action is a large qne-,every year.' and: violent exercise, subjecting that drgsn to a strain to which it I 8 hot accustomed, accounts, for q large proportion of these deaths', Qne may observe people every day rqshing for the ferry-boats and trains as if a delay of five minutes would be intolerable. If the individuals were accustomed to much exeroise there would be far less danger of any failure of heart action from; an overstrain. - But;the man of full habit walks as i little as possible, takes the lift, rather .than go up a single flight of stairs, rushes on to a

ferryboat or a railway traiD, drops down in his seat red in the face, out o£ wind, his respiration laboured, the pulse beating twice as fast as the normal rate, while the gasping man is satisfied that he did not get left. He has gone pretty near to death’s door, but he has saved the train by a scratch. Dr Hammond says not one business man in ten can ascend the steps of an elevated railway station even when done slowly, without having the action of the heart doubled In frequency. A rapidly beating heart is almost invariably a feeble heart. lie maintains that there is but one legitimate way of making the heart strong. That is by taking regular and systematic muscular exercise, iu which climbing heights or staircases is the prominent feature. This medical authority strips the elevator of nearly all its supposed benefits. He recommends that a person who finds his pulse increased fifty or sixty. beatß e minute after mounting a single staircase, should gradually increase the number of ascents until they reach a hundred in a single day. The result would be, in time, that all this exertion would not increase the whole number of heart-beats more than ten a minute. In short, ho recommends the very exercise that most persons are inclined to discard. Iu fact, the broad, one-story house found favour with many people because there were no stairs to climb. Dr Hammond further eluoidatss his point : * But this is not all the good that will be gained by climbing 100 staircases a day —say fifty in the morning and fifty in the afternoon. Doubtless the person with a weak heart has suffered more or les3 from what is called nervous dyspepsia. His food, instead of being properly digested, has been mainly fermented in hi 3 stomaoh, and has caused him various uncomfortable feelings, which he has been in the habit of attributing to everything but their proper cause. Not only have the one hundred minutes or so spent in climbing staircases put strength into his legs, expanded his chest -and saved his heart from fatty degeneration, but they have given tone to his abdominal muscles and to his digestive organs. Of course, in mounting his 100 staircases a day it would he imprudent for him to begin with this number. At first one in the morning and one in the afternoon are sufficient, and the ta k may be doubled every day with entire safety until the requisite quota is reached. There is no danger of his relapsing into his former sedentary habits. The feeling of bien aise and state of general beatitude will be so marked that he will be anxious to continue the good work. In specifying a staircase as the proper place for exercise I am only using it as a type of the kind of muscular exertion that is the most desirable and the one most readily accessible for the resident of a city. A Bteep hill in the country is far preferable, for there the physical effort is accompanied by the mental exhilaration resulting from exercise in the open air, but we must make the best of the means at our disposal.’ The same authority declares that the oldfashioned tread-mill of unsavoury reputation, affords the best possible means of giving tone to weak hearts. He is putting one of these devices into a sanitarium that he is erecting in Washington, and says that all patients who come to him with enfeebled heart action will be sent to this tread-mill for regular exercise every day, and he will make their hearts stronger by this practice. So, then, on the score of health, the elevator, which dispenses with stair-climbing, is not much of a blessing after all. Ascending flights of stairs by way of exercise, is rather a hum-drum business ; but now that it has received the highest medical indorsement, it may find more favour. It is well to note that a majority of sudden deaths from .the failure of heart action, occur among active business men, and most of them can probably be traced to a lack of sufficient physical exercise, and the overstrain of some exciting cause. It is not probable that the climbing of a hundred staircases a day can be made a popular exercise. But the equivalent in walks and hill-climbing might be substituted.