Exercise Better than Medicine

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 45, 1 October 1892, Page 4

Exercise Better than Medicine

Much of the food actually digested and assimilated is not used to the fullest extent for want of sufficient oxidation to make it yield the greatest amount of vitalising power to the tissues of the body. Sue h partially unoxidized products have en irritating effect on the organs and tissues, and predisposes them to disease it they do not directly affect them with it. Kxercise has a stimulating effect on all parts of the borlv by inducing further oxidation in all the tissues and organs This increased oxidation is attended by a greater demand on the [>art of the system for oxygen— as indicated by the greater number, force, and frequency of the respirations. During exercise the heart beats foster, and forces more bioofi through the lungs *o all parts of the body, bearing in its little blood cells the precious life-givinu factor, oxygen. Tlu'sc little cells— one constituent of wtiicli, hoernoplobin, has the wonderful faculty of quickly loading and unloading itsel' with oxygen — thus act as direct aids to the process of oxidation in the tissjes and organs. It is the combining of oxygen with unoxidized products in the blood that gives to each individual cell" its possibility of sustaining life. Any process which increases the oxygen supplied to all parts of the body tends to strengthen the life in each individual cell, and to give it more power to resist disease Exercise of all factors does this most effectively, and besides actually producing in each individual cell a greater vitality, it gives a favourable opportunity for the waste products of the tissues to be thrown off rapidly. By thus causing a further oxidizing of* certain matters in the blood, it. conduces in a rouble sense to life and health. Habitual outdoor exercise, with suitable protection from extremes of weather, is the most effective menns of prolonging life to old age.