Oxygen and Exercise.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 1, 6 January 1909, Page 52

Oxygen and Exercise.

MEDICAL MAN S VIEWS. (Mr. Leonard Hill, M. 8., F.R.S., in the “Daily Mail.”) Man eats food and inhales oxygen. The lieef and bread and oxygen alike become incorporated into that wonderful living liquid, the blood, suffering a “change into something rich and strange. Food is useless without oxygen, as is oxygen without food, for the process of oxidation of the foodstuffs in our tissues is the source of the warmth and pow’er of our bodies. The body rejects an excess of either. A fire can be fanned into furious burning by heaping on fuel and giving a blast of air. The body of man cannot be made to burn at a quicker rate by giving more beef and oxygen, for the brain regulates the activity of the body. When the brain sets the body to do hard, muscular work the rate of combustion may increase five and even sevenfold, and then the supply of foodstuffs and oxygen must be adequate to meet the demand. The body can lay up or store foodstuffs in the form of fat, upon which to draw in times of great and prolonged exertion. It can store but little oxygen : the heart and lungs must supply this. The waste of water from the body is so great that this must be supplied to the body during a prolonged athletic feat. The evaporation of sweat keeps the body cool, like the radiator of a motor-car. With too little food, water, or oxygen the bodily strength wanes, and the work is ill done and causes distress. There is never any noteworthy deficiency of oxygen in our rooms, even when these are most crowded and stuffy. The discomfort of a stuffy room arises from the heat moisture and motionless condition of the air, and its consequent unpleasant smell. It is an effort to regulate the body temperature in such conditions, and we become overheated and fatigued. Such rooms need not oxygen, but ample ventilation, with cool, fresh air. ATMOSPHERE ON MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS. The effect of too little oxygen is seen in the peculiar sickness of those who go to very high altitudes in balloons and mountain ascents. At great heights in the Himalayas, where the barometric pressure falls to half, only half the weight of oxygen is taken into the lungs at each breath. The mountaineer must breathe twice as deeply to get the right quantity, and in the 'effort of climbing he often fails to keep up his supply. The trained guide does much better than the amateur in this respect. Many of us who live on the plains are so out of training, or have such defect of heart, blood, or lung, that we suffer from want of oxygen when taking vigorous exercise. This is the case, too, with athletes who set themselves to accomplish extreme efforts. The heart and breathing organs must then work at double or treble the usual rate in order to keep the muscles supplied with oxygen; they become fatigued, the supply falls off, and the process of oxidation in the muscles is not carried to completion. When this happens poisonous waste products collect, and the energies fail. The result is stiffness and “grogginess’’ of the legs, distressful panting and faintness, until by rest the supply of oxygen is made good and the muscles repaired. OXYGEN NOT A DRUG. It is to prevent these results that I recommend the breathing of oxygen—to lessen the distress of athletes, to put an end to the sad spectable of a Dorando tottering into the Stadium—a sight for tears not cheers. If water, beef extracts, and champagne are allowed to the Marathon runner, why not oxygen, the pure essence of the air, which his poor, tired body needs beyond all else? For oxygen is the air we breathe freed from the inert diluent nitrogen, which forms four-fifths of the atmosphere. It is obtained by liquefying air and allowing the oxygen to boil off before the nitrogen. Oxygen may be compared to beef concentrated by freeing it from water, which forms four-fifths of its weight. It is against all the facts of science to call it a “dope” or a stimulant. Cocaine strychnine, alcohol, are such, and given in toxic doses lessen the control of the brain and force the body into riotous living, leaving it exhausted and damaged. That oxygen is not a stimulant is shown

by the fact that it has bo effect on a man at rest, and none on the athlete or -acehorse in a sprint if he or it be fresh HbH perfectly trained. Oxygen only’ helps when the power of the muscles is greater than the adequacy of heart and lungs to supply them with' oxygen. This is so in the imperfectly, trained athlete or horse, and becomes increasingly’ so in the athlete exhausted by’ prolonged effort. EXPERIMENT ON A RACEHORSE; By the .kindness of Mr W. R. Clarke, of Debenham Hall, 1 have been able to prove on a perfectly trained, fresh racehorse that oxygen has no effect if given before. a six-furlong sprint. On the other hand, an old milk-cart horse, tired with the day’s work, went off at a gallop and gaily’ elimbed a hill after breathing oxygen, and would, I know, be glad to have some at the bottom of each hill encountered in his daily round. Whether oxygen for athletes is considered unsportsmanlike or not is a matter of little moment, for it has, I believe, an important part to play as a, form of treatment for those who cannot; enjoy’ the exhilaration of active exercise because they are scant of breath'. Whenever forced work has to be done at all costs, oxygen will be of use. To firemen spent in fighting a great disaster, stokers coaling a battleship, soldiers throwing up a trench, a draught of water and a few breaths of oxygen will give fresh energy. By the use of oxygen in training an athlete may, I think, take harder spells of exercise, and get his muscles more quickly into condition —a matter of no little moment to men engaged in city’ occupations.