ATHLETE’S ARTERIES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 15

ATHLETE’S ARTERIES

IMPORTANT TEST NO ILL-EFFECTS FROM STRENUOUS LIFE London, February 14. Dr. Adolphe Abrahams, of Westminster Hospital, lecturing at the Royal College of Surgeons, described a remarkable experiment to test the effect of athletics on the arteries. “It had been said that prolonged and strenuous athletics deteriorated arteries, so I determined on a test. A specialist removed one of my arteries and revealed that, after 27 years of athletics and hard exercise, I was as good a man as one who had never undertaken hard exercise.” Dr. Abrahams objected to the tendency to attribute deaths during athletic efforts to heart failure.—Sydney “Sun" Cable. Rugby, February 14. Medical men and athletes are interested in an experiment made by Dr. Adolphe Abrahams, of Westminster Hospital. Dr. Abrahams had an artery removed from his arm to see if his 27 years of strenuous athletics had led to deterioration of the arteries. The artery was found to be in normal condition. Dr. Abrahams considers that this goes to disprove that athletes suffer ill-effects, as is often suggested. His brother, 11. M. Abrahams, the famous athlete, expressed the opinion that the real danger in a strenuous life of athletic competition is the psychological effect. “When you go in for four or five years of competitions of one. kind and another you are in the public eye, and always wondering whether you are going fo beat the other fellow. That is where the strain comes in.’’—British Official Wireless.