Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/161

Rh got discouraged the first day by disfiguring accidents, and of others who contracted dyspepsia by exercising directly after dinner.

A well-developed system of physical culture offers remedies for almost every disorder of the human organism, and for all but the most hopeless malformations. As a preliminary, gymnasium pupils should be advised to postpone the principal meal of the day (call it supper or dinner) to the late afternoon, and at least half an hour after the conclusion of their exercises. Violent muscular efforts can exhaust the vital vigor of the organism to a degree which—for a short time — may take away the appetite, and make it advisable to defer repletion for a little while; but even a direct rush from the gymnasium to the dining-room would be hygienically preferable to the opposite mistake. After-dinner rest is recommended by the plainest monitions of instinct, by drowsiness, apathy, and aversion to strenuous efforts of any kind. After being nursed, a fretful child will fall asleep; gorged animals become torpid and retire to a resting-place—some of them for days and weeks. The physiological reason can be found in the fact that exercise interferes with