Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/155

Rh caprices of their mysterious disorder, will not be apt to protract that special test of strength beyond the first premonitions of fatigue. Burden-carrying is always liable to bring on a spasmodic fit of an affection that cannot be provoked by other forms of exercise, even in preposterous overdoses. A bicyclist may work his pedals till his spine is twisted by cramps and his fingers threaten to relax their grip; his lungs may heave and gasp without betraying any other symptoms of distress, a pedestrian may trudge along till his knee-joints stagger and sleep tries to enforce its rights in the middle of the track, but no trace of asthma, while a shouldered weight of perhaps less than a hundred pounds suddenly "cuts the breath," as if the valves of the respiratory apparatus had closed with a snap. "Dyspnœa," or air-famine, pathologists call a paroxysm of that sort, and the difficulty in drawing a full breath may yield to a cold sponge-bath or defy all remedies and keep the patient in misery for weeks together. Light indoor work: amateur carpentering, house-cleaning, adjusting stove-pipes or library shelves, is, on the other hand, the most efficient of all asthma-cures, and far more permanent in