THE DANGERS OF FOOTBALL.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2296, 12 August 1881, Page 2

THE DANGERS OF FOOTBALL.

The “Australian Medical Journal” is particularly hard on the game of football, not only with regard to she players, hut even to the spectators. It is asserted in this journal that the bones of the colonial youth are peculiarly brittle. Meat is so generally an article of diet in colonial households, to the exclusion of phosphatic farinacaj, such as oatmeal, and the drinking water in general is so deficient in lime, that a serious disproportion is observable in the colonial physique of muscle over bone, and the latter is, in consequence, more inclined to snap nndeisevere strain or pressure than is the case in the old country. Taking football, as played in New Zealand, it cannot be denied that the psr-centage of accidents, compared with those that take place in England, is very high, and, moreover, they have generally happened to those born in the colony, thus hearing out, to a. certain 'extent, the theorjr laid down by the “ Medical Journal.” Almost the first thing which strikes a new-comer to New Zealand is the largo amount of animal food given to young children. It is given to them by their parents, in total ignorance of the fact that the consequences may not be all that they could wish. For such parents the remarks we have alluded to may point a moral not altogether unserviceable. With regard to spectators of the game, the “Medical Journal ” da-

dares that few who have arrived at middle age are able to sit or stand through a cold afternoon without experiencing some degree of those internal congestions which have their origin in chill and end in a short or maimed existence. One section of the medical faculty in Australia, at all events, do not favour the game of which it may be said, as Mr. Jonoeks said of hunting, that “ it is the image|o£ war without its guilt and with only five-and-twonty per cent, of the danger.”