Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/197

Rh energy, the feeling of fatigue is gone and we turn with freshness to our task; our supposed fatigue was only an illusion. Even with our imperfect experimental methods, however, enough has been discovered to show, among other things, that human beings differ greatly in the rate at which fatigue develops. Mosso demonstrated this many years ago, though his methods are not now regarded as the best.

I have thus far confined myself to a consideration of the nature of fatigue and the conditions under which it develops. Recovery from fatigue is perhaps of even greater interest. Both in the isolated muscle and in the intact organism, fatigue may be carried so far that recovery is difficult or even impossible. The later stages of fatigue are often spoken of as exhaustion, but obviously no sharp line can be drawn between fatigue and exhaustion. Exhaustion is probably most common when labor is continued for years without adequate resting periods. Exhaustion from a temporary effort is of rare occurrence, observable occasionally in athletes and in persons upon whom there is made a sudden and unexpected demand for enormous physical or mental exertion. Usually, however, when a fatiguing expenditure of energy by a living tissue ceases, recovery begins at once. Even in the excised muscle, with all supply of blood cut off, a few minutes' rest allows for a certain degree of recuperation, due possibly to the absorption of oxygen. If a weak solution of common salt, or, better, a suitable mixture of various salts, be passed through the blood vessels of the muscle for a few minutes and thus the accumulated fatigue substances be, at least partially, washed out, the recuperation is greater. If a small quantity of glucose be added to the solution, or if nutritive oxygenated blood be introduced, there is still greater recovery, and the power of further work is much enhanced (Fig. 7). All of these methods are

 Series of contractions of a frog's gastrocnemius muscle in situ and stimulated at intervals of two seconds. The flow of blood through the muscle was stopped by ligating the artery, and the record of fatigue was made. At the break in the series, the muscle rested five minutes, during which time the ligature was removed and the blood was allowed to circulate through the muscle. The record of contractions at the right of the break was made immediately after the resting period, and while the blood was still circulating.

physiological—in them the chemical conditions conducing to fatigue are replaced by reverse conditions and the result is reversed—oxygen and food are introduced, carbon dioxide and lactic acid are removed, and there is a restoration of working power. In the living human body