FOOTBALL INTOXICATION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10638, 14 April 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOOTBALL INTOXICATION.

SERIOUS RISKS RUN BY SPECTATORS. Sir James Cricliton-Browne, M.D., gives his views on the question whether football-watching is a healthy occupation, in the March number of Pearson's Magazine. ."I say nothing," he writes, "of the proletarian betting of which football ii provocative— though that is a grave danger to public health— or of the rowdyism that gathers round it, with its degenerative tendencies; but I woiuld point out that tlie inordinate addiction to f ootbaliwalehing becomes a kind of physical intoxication. "Those who habitually indulge in it are apt to become stupid and sodden, or silly and frenzied. A little of it is exhilarating, too much of it, to the exclusion of other interests, must weaken the brain. A variety _of impressions is necessary to cerebral vigor. The incessant repetition of one small round of ideas debilitates, and so football may become almost a monomania. "Then many of these vast throngs of. football loungers are weakening not only their brains, but their legs. Engaged in sedentary occupations they should, wlien off work, acfivelv employ their lowei limbs, instead of keeping tltem rigid, or suspended, or tucked in. "And really the superannuation of the legs is becoming an ominous matter in these days, and suggests that they ultimately may become rudimentary ajipendages."