WHY ROSE HAS FAILED

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12507, 24 July 1926, Page 9

WHY ROSE HAS FAILED

SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION SEASONAL FLUCTUATIONS TOE CAUSE A PROFESSOR’S THEORY (By Telegraph.—Special to “Times.”) AUCikLAiVD, July New Ze&lanu anu Australian criuKet, tennis ana athletic teams competing m iMigiaud suiter under adverse seasonal influences whica have a very markea and unfortunate bearing ju tlicir efforts, according to a theory developed by Froiessor A. B. Fitt, ?u a lecture on seasonal fluctuations in humau behaviour by means of graphs. iteducing to averages uata ootanied from hoo .Melbourne children or ti to 14 years of age, Professor Fitt showed that the human body gained weight mainly in the autumn and winter corresponding to the gain of weight of hibernating animals. Weight, however, was essentially a spring growth, memory was at its most efficient point in the early winter, mental speed and accuracy rose during the autunm and winter and had a tendency to wandering after July. Suicides, according to the graphs, rose in the months or July and August at a time when the human ‘ organism was at a low ebb owing to the consumption of the nutritives stored up for the winter. Death graphs showed deaths increased in the months of July and August. These were months when the human organism was least stable and marked the point when life ended and now lives began. PRACTICAL TEST Putting his theory to practical test Professor Fitt said lie had studied tho activities of Australian and English Yost cricket teams over a number of years and been struck by tendencies peculiarly resembling tho cycle changes of his seasonal theory. Visiting teams ttlwayn tended to lose. When an Australian team went to England for summer play the members were not maintaining the same rhythm of activity as wore Londoners and could not adapt themselves to tho new conditions for at least a year, while Englishmen were playing at the best time of tho year physically and mentally speaking. THE ONLY REMEDY Australians found themselves victims to a crisis of the Australian winter and spring cycle when the human organism was at a low ebb. This would explain tho poor results achieved by tin, Australian tennis teams and by the unsatisfactory form being displayed by Rose in England. The fact was Rose was fighting his organism and the latter was trying hopelessly to adapt itself immediately to climatic change. No amount of explanations and excuses could account for it other than that and there was only one jrmodv whether for tennis, cricket, or athletic purjxxsos. That was for the visiting team to go to England a year earlier than intended and acclimatise itself to the seasonal change. If that is not practical the matches should he played between the seasonal extremes in the months that might be termed neutrtdj say autumn, •