“STRAINED HEART.”

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1928, Page 1

“STRAINED HEART.”

ADULATION A DANGER TO ATHLETES. LONDON, February 17. " The physiology of violent exercise in relation to the possibility of strain ” was the subject of a lecture delivered by Air Adolphe Abrahams at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He said that, although it was conceivable that in the condition known as “ strained heart ” following violent exertion some change took place in the muscle fibre of the heart, he preferred to locate the trouble in the system as a whole rather than in a single organ. The great athlete must he possessed not only of a sound heart, hut of a sound hotly, and when death followed violent exertion it was probable that there had been some sudden molecular change in the constitution and that it arose from a failure of co-ordination between the various parts of the body. The condition known as “stitch” was, he thought, nearly always due to simple indigestion, and it was possible that even the exaggerated precautions taken by athletes before a race were not sufficeint. “Stitch” might he prevented by running on an absolutely empty stomach. There was no doubt that athletes who were training for an event were likely to suffer from functional nervous disorders, hut this was not caused by their training but by the fact that they found it impossible to take their minds off a single event which was to occur in the near future. Those who were at the same time the objects of adulation were in even greater danger of incurring nervous disorders, and young women and girls in a similar position ran a greater risk still.