forehead was bathed in sweat. Never, he afterwards informed us, had a cataract operation caused him a like cerebral effort.

II.

The first benefit derived from the practice of difficult exercises is, then, in the education of movements. Everyone has noticed how rapidly gymnastics diminish the awkwardness and clumsiness of the man who practises them. The recruit who has been used to rough agricultural labours becomes rapidly more polished. His muscles, hitherto used to slow obedience, in order to perform their easy movements with more strength, are obliged to obey with precision and rapidity. They undergo a discipline to which they are strangers, and perform an apprenticeship which makes their action more prompt and easy.

If we consider the details of the application of difficult exercises, we meet certain patients for whom they are strongly indicated: these are children suffering from chorea. In this disease the patient has lost control of his muscles. Involuntary movements disturb him from morning till night, in spite of all his efforts to remain motionless, and on the other hand his voluntary movements are beyond direction and control. The patients upset things they touch, they wriggle and twist when they try to walk, and have, in a word, neither precision nor moderation in their muscular actions.

Chorea, or St. Vitus's dance, gives us the opportunity of studying persons whose power of co-ordinating movements has disappeared. To re-establish discipline in their insane muscles there is nothing better than these exercises, every movement of which needs a severe control on the part of the nerve-centres.

But, except in certain very special cases, difficult exercises have little medicinal application. They may be a useful pastime, and may become a wholesome passion able to protect a young man from dangerous temptations: they can give to a man a feeling of selfconfidence, for they are useful in defence of the person;

they may finally turn a lout into an agile and supple man, but they will never make a weak man into a strong

one.

Every exercise tends to modify the system in a sense favourable to its own performance, and to create types best fitted to accomplish it. This is a consequence of the physiological law in virtue of which function makes structure. It is enough to know the type of structure which is most suitable to success in any exercise to conclude that the practice of such an exercise will have a tendency to modify in the direction of such a type the constitution of the individual who gives himself up to it. Exercises of strength tend to render a man more massive, those of speed to render him lighter. We may find between animals and men analogies of structure which correspond in a striking manner to analogies of work. The porter and the wrestler are built like the ox and the cart-horse; the prize-fighter resembles the bulldog. If we enquire the results of difficult exercises, we find a striking resemblance between a man who practises them very much and the animal which excels in them; the acrobat is very like a monkey.

This is the most striking result of difficult exercises: they tend to make movements freer, and the performance of work more easy. But just because of the economy of force which results from the skill acquired, they cause less than others an association of the great functions of the economy in the muscular work. By economising the force expended, they tend to diminish the expenditure of heat, to reduce as much as possible the intensity of the combustions and the production of carbonic acid which results from them. In this manner the respiratory need is but little increased, and there is no tendency to the production of breathlessness. For the same reasons, the circulation of the blood is not quickened nearly so much in exercises of skill as in exercises of strength and of speed. Difficult exercises influence very little the activity of respiration and circulation.

On the other hand, these exercises have peculiar

effects on the nervous system which are to be explained by the very active intervention of the functions of innervation in the coordination of movements.

If we consider them from a purely hygienic standpoint, we may say that difficult exercises are far less useful than exercises of endurance or exercises of speed. The cases in which the physician will prefer to prescribe work of coordination rather than work of strength are very rare.

Increased fineness of the muscular sense, and great dexterity of movements may have their value in certain circumstances of life. It is no doubt sometimes of great practical value to know how to use a sword; it is precious in case of fire to be able to climb a long slender cord like a monkey it is agreeable to have on all our movements a stamp of ease which makes all bodily attitudes graceful. But hygiene has a very different point of view. The body needs for complete development that the most important parts of the human machine should act vigorously. Now, exercises which develop dexterity tend to throw the greater part of the work on the most delicate parts of the human system. They lead to economy in the expenditure of muscular force, thanks to supplementary work at the expense of the nerves and the brain.

In difficult exercises all the psychical faculties associate in the work of the muscles. Hence arise the most characteristic conditions of difficult exercises: they need brain-work. Judgment, memory, comparison, will, such are the psychical factors which preside over their performance. The cerebrum, the cerebellum, the sensory nerves, are organs whose very active concurrence is indispensable.

Persons whose brains have already been heavily taxed by mental work are not then those to whom difficult exercises are suited.

How indeed, can we expect that the nerve-centres will gain repose, and the cerebral excitement be calmed under the influence of an exercise which brings the encephalon and the whole nervous system into action? This is however a frequent error. Difficult exercises

make up three-fourths of athletics. All the exercises performed with apparatus need a prolonged apprenticeship. The trapeze, the rings, and the horizontal bar are the terror of certain novices who torture—not their muscles, but their brain-in order to succeed in performing a difficult movement, which in the end, when they have learned the trick, needs little work.

Too much nervous work and too little muscular work! This is the reproach which clings to most of the exercises which need a long apprenticeship, and which are those most practised.

CHAPTER VI.

AUTOMATISM IN EXERCISE.

Movements Performed without the Intervention of the BrainDecapitated Animals-A Curious Spectacle Invented by the Emperor Commodus-Organs which Perform their Functions Automatically-Unconscious Movements-Office of the Spinal Cord-Conditions of Automatism in Exercise - Influence of Rhythm; Movements with a Cadence-Dancing Tunes-Influence of Apprenticeship-Necessity for Absence of Effort in Automatic Movements-Regularity of Automatic Actions-A Personal Observation: Automatism in Rowing-Persistence of Automatic Actions - "Memory" of the Spinal Cord - How Different Paces are Created-Tenacity of Early Muscular Habits -Quickness in Fencing-Race Horses Trained too SlowlyEffects of Automatism in Exercise-Economy of Voluntary Nervous Energy The Brain supplemented by the Spinal Cord -Repose of the Psychical Faculties-Superiority of Automatic Exercises in Cases of Cerebral Fatigue.

We have tried to show in the preceding chapter how the brain and the psychical faculties can play an important part in bodily exercises. It remains for us to show here that muscular work may sometimes, on the contrary, be performed independently of the brain and without the intervention of the will.

We must first recall the fact that the brain is not indispensable to the performance of certain movements. The spinal cord suffices in certain cases to throw the muscles into action, for it is a nerve-centre, and consequently a focus of independent motor activity. But the movements due to the unaided action of the spinal cord have a peculiar character: they are involuntary. The will in fact has a direct action only on the cells of the brain, and cannot influence the independent activity of