or diminishing the quantity of deposit formed after the work. The nearer he approaches to the condition of training, the less abundant the deposits in the urine, the amount of work remaining the same. In proportion as from practice he acquires more power of resisting fatigue, his urine loses the tendency to deposit urates.

There is nothing more interesting than to follow the inverse progression of these two phenomena: power of resisting fatigue, and the formation of urinary deposits. If the same individual does every day the same exercise, demanding the same expenditure of force; if he undertakes for instance, to row a certain distance in an hour every day, his exercise, which causes great stiffness during the first few days, hardly produces any disturbance after a week's practice. His urine which at first gave abundant deposits, shows later only a faint cloud.

As the deposit becomes smaller, the sensation of consecutive fatigue tends to diminish, and when the urine keeps perfectly clear after the exercise, he will suffer from no kind of discomfort: there will be no stiffness. There is then a close relation, an invariable coincidence between the formation of deposits of urates and the production of stiffness.

This remarkable correlation is found in all circumstances which can alter the effects of work.

If we pass from an exercise with which we are familiar, to another exercise calling into action a different muscular group, we experience afresh the discomfort of stiffness, and our urine again shows a deposit. Thus, a man used to forced marches, experiences no consecutive fatigue on the day following a long journey made on foot. He will, however, suffer from stiffness, if, without being used to it, he spends a short time in fencing. If we examine his urine, we shall discover that though it remained perfectly clear after twelve hours' walking, it is very turbid after twenty minutes' fencing. This will always be the result when we undertake a new kind of work, which brings into play muscles not hitherto exercised.

The close correlation between stiffness of fatigue and

the formation of excrementitious products which make the urine turbid, may be ascertained even in accidental circumstances which make the resistance of the individual variable, and render him for a time more vulnerable to fatigue. Under the influence of slight indisposition, of an insignificant disturbance of health, it often happens, as all amateurs of sport know, that the aptitude for work is for the time diminished. On these days the gymnast has not his accustomed vigour, and the exercise is followed by a long-forgotten sensation of discomfort. A man well broken in to his work shows, under these circumstances, the same phenomena of fatigue as a novice, and his urine, which for a long time has always remained clear after exercise, begins again to deposit

urates.

We have many times observed these facts on ourselves, and have been able also to record them on other persons, as the following observation shows.

A friend of ours, a good oarsman, in perfect training, offered himself for our studies on the changes in the urine produced by work; but he was so inured to muscular exercise that we could never find the slightest deposit in his urine. One morning we were rowing with him in the same boat, and we were surprised to see that he was wanting in his accustomed vigour; he needed all his force of will to go on rowing to the end of his ordinary course. Two nights without sleep had brought about this temporary enfeeblement. On this occasion the exercise left him throughout the entire day with a sensation of discomfort and stiffness, such as he had never experienced, and his urine, which for a long time had been very clear after work, showed very abundant deposits of urates.

Whenever the organism is in a condition of “diminished resistance," there is a tendency to the formation of deposits of urates, and a tendency also to a manifestation of the symptoms of stiffness.

It may happen that the deficient resistance of the organism is produced by a cause of the moral order, by

mental abstraction, by depressing emotion. We have been able to ascertain that, in this condition of physical and moral depression, a well-trained man loses for a time his immunity from fatigue, and shows, after muscular exercise, all the symptoms of stiffness; but, at the same time, his urine is not clear as usual after work, but deposits urates. We have observed this phenomenon in a man who was a great fencer, inured to all forms of exercise. He fenced every day, with no symptoms of stiffness, and no deposit in his urine. One day, after a short fencing bout, when his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of a serious duel he had to fight on the following day, he suffered from a very severe attack of stiffness, and we found an abundant precipitate in his urine.

Such are the facts of experiment and observation showing the constant correlation between the formation of deposits of urates and the production of the stiffness of fatigue. Every circumstance which makes a man more vulnerable to fatigue, causes at the same time a tendency to the formation of deposits in his urine.

Between these two phenomena, excretion of turbid urine, and discomfort following exercise, there is so constant a correlation, that it is impossible not to see in them a relation of cause and effect.

CHAPTER VI.

STIFFNESS (continued).

Objection to Our Theory-Are Urinary Deposits due to the Perspiration produced by Exercise?-Observations opposed to the opinion of Authors on this Subject-An Experiment in Fatigue:-Rowing from Limoges to Paimboeuf-Agreement of Observations with Chemical Analysis-Exercise produces a Uricæmic condition-Analogy of Stiffness of Fatigue with certain Febrile conditions-Stiffness of Fatigue and an Attack of Gout-Cause of Immunity from Stiffness when in TrainingFunction of Reserve Materials-Products of Dissimilation-Part played by Uric Acid in Stiffness-Stiffness is an AutoIntoxication.

I.

AN objection first presents itself against the conclusion we have just formulated.

Some authors consider urine which forms deposits after muscular exercise not as a liquid containing more excrementitious materials than in the ordinary condition, but as a more concentrated liquid, that is to say, one containing less water for the same quantity of solids in solution. Urinary deposits are not more abundant in urine after exercise, but the water which holds them in solution is less. Hence more saturation of the liquid and tendency to precipitation.* If the theory of these authors were true, these urinary deposits would not indicate any change in the chemical composition of the liquid; they would merely mean that a part of the water ordinarily eliminated by the kidney has been discharged by other channels, and notably by the skin. Excessive

* Dictionnaire de médicine et de chirurgie pratique. Art. " Urine."

perspiration would then be the true cause of the forma tion of the deposits.

Two strong arguments can be opposed to this theory. In the first place the urine is often just as abundant on the days when there are deposits, as on the days when there are none. We have established this by fifty observations on different persons. It often happened during these observations that, perspiration having been but slight, and urine more abundant than usual, the deposits were none the less formed, in a person unaccustomed to work. On the other hand, we have been able to ascertain that, in perfectly trained men, profuse sweats often occur during exercise without any subsequent turbidity of the urine.

A long observation of fatigue, made on a friend and on ourselves, has enabled us to confirm through nine successive days the result of the studies we had already made, and certainly to give them more weight.

In the beginning of August 1886, we set out in a boat intending to row in as short a time as possible from Limoges to Paimbœuf. In nine days we covered the distance of 341 miles with double sculls, having further an excessive supplementary work in dragging our boat up the high and nearly dry weirs, which to the number of 83 interrupt the course of the Vienne.

This great expenditure of muscular force never made us stiff, for we had both been hardened by two months' training. After working twelve or fourteen hours in the sun on the hottest days of the year, we suffered in many ways, but never from stiffness; we never found ourselves on rising in the morning less disposed for work than the night before, although, while working, fatigue was carried to its utmost limits, and when we left the oars our strength was exhausted. The exercise had been pushed to the degree of overwork, for, in spite of a very substantial diet washed down with some wine and a great deal of coffee, we each of us lost ten pounds in weight in the nine days. But we were never attacked by stiffness, and our urines, examined day by day, never presented the least deposit of urates.