Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/706

634 take with great benefit some forms of passive mechanical movements, given after the Swedish system with power machinery, and which cause them to execute walking movements, respiratory movements, and trunk flexions while reclining, and with a minimum of effort and fatigue. Neurasthenics less severely affected can take such movements from the start, and they are indicated where the effects of exercise in equalizing the circulation and nervous activity, developing respiratory capacity and the supply of oxygen, increasing peristaltic and hepatic action, and nutrition, are desired for patients who are physically too delicate or who have too little energy or persistence to be able to get much benefit from exercise where vigorous volitional cooperation is involved. When the latter can be successfully prescribed the patient is well on the way to recovery.

Exercises of endurance, like cycling, rowing, and running, pushed to the point of considerable fatigue, are the most effective aids to continence, since the procreative impulse is the expression of a surplus of energy, and is abated if enough energy is regularly used up through muscular work.

As the larger number of functional disorders of the digestive system, such as dyspepsia and constipation, are the result either of the habitual neglect of muscular exercise or else of exercise taken under conditions of hurry, nervous tension, or fatigue, it is clear that the regulation of exercise and habits of life must be urgently indicated. In conditions of atony the patient must be trained to a variety of exercises, especially those involving the waist, abdomen, and trunk, among which the more active ones may be gradually introduced. In the cases due to debility from nerve tire, exercises requiring much skill should not be chosen, since these involve increased demands on the higher nerve centers. As there is usually sluggishness of the abdominal circulation, those exercises should be selected which will act on the abdominal organs through the muscles of the waist and trunk and upon respiration. Among the best of these is riding, which, moreover, affords just enough variety of scene and interest in the control of the horse to turn the current of an incessantly active brain into new and more restful channels. Riding may be as accurately dosed as walking, and may range from very gentle to exceedingly severe exercise, according to the gait, training, and disposition of the horse, the muscular development, temperament, and expertness of the rider, and the character of the ride. Changing from one mount to another also gives more variety of exercise than always riding the same horse. Abdominal massage is sometimes useful in constipation, as are also the arm, leg, and trunk movements of the Swedes or of the gymnasium, and walking, running, leaping, tennis, and other sports have their uses.