The incident may remind the reader of classical medicine of Hippocrates, who considers the culinary preparation of oatmeal ptisan so important, that, in a short treatise "On the Treatment of Acute Disease," he devotes to it the only cookery recipe he has inserted in his works. He describes how it is to be boiled till it can swell no longer (so that it may swell no more in the stomach), how it is to be settled and 6trained through a coarse colander. He prescribes it, indeed, for sick people, but he would have been the first to agree with our advanced physiologists in the opinion that overstrained muscular effort produces the same effect as continued fever (es rupeTov kaoiararau uakpotepov), its chief dangers lying in rise of temperature and arrested cutaneous action, and that its true antagonist is nutriment capable of rapid absorption, dissolved in that most essential nutriment, water. 1 See Maclaren's " Training in Theory and Practice," appendix to edition of 1866.

Training for athletic sports is based on the principles above enunciated. The usual time allotted to it is six weeks, and the objects to be attained in this period may be described as-

1. The removal of superfluous fat and water.

2. The increase of contractile power in the muscles.

3. Increased endurance.

4. "Wind," that is to say, a power of breathing and circulating the blood steadily, in spite of exertion.

The first is aimed at by considerably adding to the daily amount of nitrogenous and by diminishing farinaceous and liquid food, and providing that it should be so consumed as to be fully digested. The second and third are secured by gradually increasing the demands made upon the muscles, till they have learned to exert at will all the powers of which they are capable, and for as long a period as the natural structure of the individual frame permits. "Wind" is improved by choosing as part of the training an exercise such as running, which can be sustained only when the respiratory and circulating organs do their duty fairly.

As an example, the Oxford system of training for the summer boat-races may be cited. It may be considered a typical regimen for fully developing a young man's corporeal powers to fulfill the demands of an extraordinary exertion-a standard which may be modified according to the circumstances for which the training is required. It is as follows:

A Day's Training.1

The Cambridge system differs very slightly, and in neither is any exaggerated severity of discipline enforced, while some latitude is permitted to peculiarities and a wish for variety, and plenty of time is left for business and social intercourse. Other plans are objectionable, from involving, without any corresponding advantage, a complete departure from the usual habits of the educated classes. For instance, according to Clasper, dinner is to be at noon, with only a light tea afterward, and no supper. Then a country walk of four or five miles is to be taken before breakfast, and two hours' row afterward, and another hard row between dinner and tea.1 "Stonehenge," again, requires the time between breakfast and dinner to be spent entirely on billiards, skittles, quoits, rowing, and running, in spite of another hour's row being prescribed at 6 p. m. He also requires the aspirant for athletic honors to sleep between ten and eleven hours.2 Only professionals will carry out such rules, and even they do not either benefit their health or lengthen their lives by the sacrifice; for it is notorious that "overtraining" leads to a condition of system in which the sufferers describe themselves as "fallen to pieces." The most peculiar symptom is a sudden loss of voluntary power after exertion. It is sometimes called "fainting," but there is no loss of sense, and it is quickly relieved by liquid food. It is to the pathologist a timely warning of that consequence of overstrained muscle which constitutes paralysis scriptorum, turner's palsy, and blacksmith's palsy, and which results in fatty degeneration of the red muscular fibre. To get and to keep its health, a muscle needs a constant alternation of active contraction and rest, and an enforced protraction of either one or the other leads to the loss of vital properties. The limbs of an Indian fakir, voluntarily held in a strained posture, or those of a bed-ridden invalid, are equally apt to become useless. Over-trained persons are also liable to a languor and apparent weakness, which is found, on examination, to depend on an excessive secretion of urea by the kidneys.

1 " Rowing Almanac," 1S63.

2 Article " Boat-Racing," in " British Rural Sports," 1861.

Such are not the results, however, of the training adopted' at the universities, by which it would appear that the constitution is strengthened, the intellect sharpened, and life lengthened. Dr. John Morgan ("University Oars," 1873) has collected statistics of the subsequent health of those who have rowed in the university races since 1829, and he finds that, whereas at twenty years of age, according to Farr's life tables, average expectation of survival is forty years, for these oarsmen it is forty-two years. Moreover, in the cases of death, inquiry into its causes exhibits evidence of good constitutions rather than the contrary, the causes consisting largely of fevers and accidents, to which the vigorous and active are more exposed than the sick. And it is not at the expense of the mind that the body is cultivated, for this roll of athletes is adorned with the names of bishops, poets, queen's counsel, etc.

Training greatly increases the vital capacity of the chest, so that much more air can be blown in and out of the lungs, and with greater force, than previously. And this vital capacity endures longer than the other improvements. It is evidence of the permanent elasticity of the pulmonary tissue, and an efficient protection against asthma, emphysema, and other degenerations of the organ of breathing.