WHAT THE HUMAN FRAME CAN ENDURE

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 27

WHAT THE HUMAN FRAME CAN ENDURE

The world was thrilled recently by the story of rescue and endurance shown in the Nova Scotian mine accident, and this, has inspired the medical journal, "The Lancet," to discuss, human endurance.

As a rule human beings employ only a small part of the resourcesphysical certainty, less obviously mental—which they in fact possess and which can be mobilised for emergency, says "The Lancet."

In certain circumstances the limits of human' endurance appear 'to be amenable to exafct measurement or estimation. Thus, no athlete has as yet succeeded with certainty in running twelve miles within the hour, although a bare half-dozen figure in the records with performances a couple of hundred yards or so short of this distance. In a "go-as-you-please" contest over six days, 624 miles have been covered. Unsuited as he is for an amphibian existence, man has swum for over 27 hours in a successful crossing of the Channel. Two teams once contested a tug-of-war pull for 2 hours 41 minutes. Club-swinging continuously for over 130 hours has on more than one occasion been -achieved, and 120 hours' uninterrupted piano-piaying appears to be the record for this peculiar attempt at distinction.

But the attention is more closely riveted, interest more actively stimu-/ lated, by examples of endurance which are outside the sphere.of direct measurement; the endurance of cold, of starvation, and of other forms of physical suffering, coupled with extreme anxiety, in shipwrecks, Polar expeditions, sieges, and the like. The rescue of two of the three men entombed for ten days in a Nova

Scotian gold mine encourages a reference to other, now classical, adventures in an attempt to gain some impression of what men in extremity can endure, to what extent the spark of life can flicker, eventually to kindle once more to a steady flame. Some thirty years ago, 'after a colliery explosion at Courieres, in France, rescuers after twenty days of excavation heard the voice ol the first survivor, who had taken charge of thirteen others in the darkness, and by his courage and example brought them to safety. Five days later, endurance of another kind was exemplified by the exhumation of another survivor who, isolated, had been able to sleep away most of his period of incarceration. Under excitement, again, the organism can perform its physiological functions in a profoundly altered manner, when for weeks and months the drain upon the reserves becomes deeper and deeper. The acme of endurance is probably reached at what is for convenience described as early middle age. The veteran in sport often succeeds by virtue of his experience when the superior speed of his more youthful opponent is associated with an impetuosity which leads to an earlier fatigue. "Too old at forty" may be applicable to enterprises in which carelessness is not a liability and speed is essential.

But the advantage of the veteran is often attributable to his greater experience; not merely the. acquisition of technique or of judgment in employing his physical ..resources to the best advantage, but a sort of individual cell education automatically acquired as the result of continued training and automatically utilised.