STRICTURES ON THE USE OF WIND-INSTRUMENTS. 39

the capability of enduring the exercise without injury, that those organs may possess.

Enough of this. The subject is, in my opinion, of the first importance. Medical men could hardly be more usefully occupied, than in the promotion of these means of aiding in the development, and adding to the vigour, of the pulmonary organs,— and in pointing out the exercise of the voice, as one of the ways, by which the due expenditure of the system might, in after life, be most usefully secured. And on the responsible watchfulness of the medical attendant, must rest the propriety of allowing this to be made a means of exercise in any degree, in the case of those who may be already invalided, and even of those who have a strong hereditary liability to pulmonary complaints.

I may be allowed to say a few words on the common practice of putting a flute, or other windinstrument, into the hands of boys. I believe that, as a general rule, the practice is not judicious; and it is the less so, in proportion to the original delicacy of the boy's constitution, and in proportion as the several circumstances of his physical education have been neglected, or been unavailingly attended to. Every thing that has had, directly or indirectly, the effect of relaxing or weakening the powers of his body, must, of course, be a direct reason for not allowing him to exercise his lungs to any unusual extent, or in any unusual way. The time, and the earliest time, when such should begin to use them, and then only with much care and watchfulness, is

when the chest is fully formed, the body has attained its full growth, and the fibres and tissues have acquired the firmness of perfect manhood. Of course, the more that the lungs have been actively exercised in early life, the less, cæteris paribus, will be the risk of allowing young lads to play on wind-instru

ments.

How extraordinary these statements and notions read by the side of the well-known crudity, so boldly advanced in a certain work, that the exercise of the lungs, and dilatation of the air-cells, by blowing through tubes, may be capable of being a remedial measure in cases of existing tubercular degeneration of the pulmonary tissues! How strange, that such a doctrine should have been quoted without disapprobation, in a recent translation of a standard work on the diseases of the chest! How extreme exercise of a diseased and vital structure can be curative, or even safe, is more than reason can explain, or, I will venture to add, than experience can justify. It would be little less unreasonable, to prescribe a course of hill-climbing and violent gymnastics to a man with valvular disease of the heart, or of leaping and jumping to a sufferer from disease of the knee joint.

A neglect of apportioning the kind, and the degree of exercise, to the powers, and constitution, and other peculiarities of the individual's physical state, is probably the reason why the whole value of exercise, as a remedy for, and a preventive against disease, is so seldom derived, and perhaps so seldom apprehended

ADAPTATION OF EXERCISE.

41

Is not exercise often enjoined, with so little reference to the patient's constitution, to his habits of life, and even sometimes to the nature of his complaints, that a certain daily mileage of walking, or the use of dumb-bells of undefined weight for an indefinite time, are the doubtfully useful, because the ad libitum prescriptions: the medicine being good, and adapted to the case, but the doses left to the chapter of accidents ? * Such a proceeding is manifestly unreasonable, and must be injurious.

The character of people's minds differs so much, that the kind of exercise, to render the prescription palatable, and therefore give it all possible chance of being adopted and persevered in, must be adapted thereto. There are some, with minds of so grave and staid a character, that to recommend to such the skipping-rope, the battledore and shuttlecock, or any other of what are ordinarily used and thought of as playthings, might be construed by such persons into an insult, and would probably be treated with contempt; and most assuredly, the injunction would never be attended to by them; and yet these individuals might be induced to ride on horseback, or

* "That which is conducing to one man, in one case, the same is opposite to another. An ass and a mule went laden over a brook, the one with salt, the other with wool. The mule's pack was wet by chance, the salt melted, his burden the lighter, and he thereby much eased. He told the ass, who, thinking to speed as well, wet his pack likewise at the next water; but it was much the heavier, he quite tired. So one thing may be good and bad to several parties, upon divers occasions."-BURTON.

to use the Hindostanee clubs, or, in fact, to do anything else which would not, according to their ideas, seem to have anything childish or ridiculous attached to it. There are, on the other hand, persons of a different mental temperament, who could not be induced to take any kind of exercise, with sufficient regularity, or to a sufficient degree, that does not involve something playful to the mind's notions; something which their buoyant and laughter-loving minds can unrestrainedly enjoy; something which they cannot look upon in the light of a toil, or a necessity, but which carries along with it a reminiscence of their days of childhood, and, in fact, brings back the feelings that they then had. Such persons may even be induced to use a skippingrope, and to play at battledore and shuttlecock, or to enter, with heart and soul, into a game at "catch me catch can." It need not be said, how important, and, indeed, needful, attention to this matter is, in prescribing different kinds of exercise.

The selection and adaptation of means of exercise within doors to different circumstances, is at once more important and more difficult, from the fact, that exercise is more apt to be neglected in wet and cold weather, and that the means of exercise within doors are more restricted. Those already mentioned, giving dancing a very honourable place among them, —and a nice quiet game, especially suited to girls, played with sticks and small hoops, called "Les Graces," and all the many games playable with a ball, are the more important of these. Out of

ADAPTATION OF EXERCISE TO AGE.

43

doors, we have hoops and trap-ball for the younger, and cricket for children of maturer growth; besides many others, that will readily suggest themselves to the mind.

Of course, none of these are ever to be thought of as substitutes for walking or riding. They do not afford the change of air, which is so importantly useful to health. But they are valuable auxiliaries to the mere locomotive exercises; and especially from involving some degree of running, and more active movements, with all the good effect of these on the healthy system, in adding to the general tone and promoting expenditure.

The age of individuals renders discrimination and modification necessary, as to the modes and degree of exercise that may be recommended. It would seldom be wise to advise the same kind of exercise to the elderly father or mother of a family, that might be recommended properly enough for his or her children or grand-children. The muscles cannot, in advanced life, be exercised so much or so long, as they could be safely used at an earlier period; nor can the organs so well bear, as they could have done in former years, the sudden and large influx of blood, that violent exercise necessarily causes. The walls of the blood-vessels are harder and denser, while their power of contracting upon their contents is materially diminished. There is, therefore, greater risk of inducing congestions of blood, and even hæmorrhage, than there is in young people, from the more violent exercises; and any such exercise may be highly improper and dangerous, and even