Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/143

118 The following extremely valuable contribution to the physiological lore of training, undoubtedly one of the ablest treatises ever prepared on the special subject, has been written for this book by a distinguished Boston physician, who has made it a particular study,—Dr. Francis A. Harris, Medical Examiner of Suffolk County, Professor of Surgery in the Boston Dental College, Demonstrator of Medico-Legal Examinations in Harvard University, etc.:—

The question of the alimentation, or feeding of the athlete, is one to be determined by the consideration of several factors in the result to be obtained.

These factors are, in general, first, the development of the body to such a degree, that, with the best muscular condition, there shall also be the nicest possible balance between the various systems, muscular and nervous. The human body is, as it were, a sort of chemical engine; and, however perfect the machine may be made, if the motive power be not kept supplied, the machine is useless.

A second factor is the removal of the superfluous, and the superfluous only. Athletes and their trainers are too apt to carry the reduction of fat to a point below the requirements of proper physical health. Fat, beside other functions, supplies heat to the body; and, for most chemical processes, a certain temperature is requisite; and, in so far as the fuel necessary for sustaining that temperature is taken away, so far are the chemical changes interfered with. This is especially true of the changes in man. Most men are trained too fine. It is a matter of history, that, in the Oxford-Harvard race of 1869, two of the crew, by training till two others who joined them weeks later were in condition, were so far below their own best physical condition as to render the crew, as a whole,