OXYGEN AND THE ATHLETE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 301, 16 December 1908, Page 4

OXYGEN AND THE ATHLETE

Some remarkable experiments have, been made recently in England witlii oxygen and athletes. Air Leonard Hill, lecturer in physiology at the London Hospital, who has been conducting me experiments, believes that by the use of oxygen it will be possible to loweathletic records and generally improve games of various kinds. The reason why a man cannot hold his breath beyond a certain time, he explains, is that he uses up the oxygen in his blood and tissues and goes on producing carbonic acid. The want of oxygen and the excess of carbonic acid excite the breathing centre in the brain and compel the man to take another breath. Air Hill found that after three breaths of oxygen he and a friend could hold their breath about three times as long is usual, and another friend, using" the .same si id,, succeeded in holding hi.!-, breath for eight minutes and a half. ■These experiments led him to think that the distress of the athlete might be largely mitigated by giving him oxygen before and alter his race. His lirsl experiment— at the London Hospital sports—was encouraging, and he felt juslilied in asking a lirst-class runner to submit to his treatment. After breathing oxygen for two minutes the athlete covered a quarter-mile in 50 l-slh see., 1 1-oth sec better than his previous Irt'st time, and was not more distressed at Hie finish than if he had ran a hundred yards. He breathed in more oxygen and ran a hundred yards in faster time than he had ever before taken to rover the distance. Another athlete' ran half a mile in the splendid time of Imin 5.3 1-oth sec, and felt so fit at the finish that he ran a quarter a few niinJites later in 53 2-sth sec, and then paced a man twice over a hundred \ards. - I have no doubt," savs .Mr Mill, "that oxygen will enable athletes to break world's records, and as its use can only do good to the athlete, and relieve excessive and dangerous distress, such as was witnessed in the case of Doraudo, it is to be hoped that t.ie Amateur Athletic- Association will „ot rule it out. At any rale, it will be valuable to use after a race. If Ooran<lo had been able to have it in (lie last mile or two of his run he would have got in all right. Champagne was a ridiculous thing to give the runners ; oxygen was what they wanted.'* Air Hill looks forward for a time when boxers and wrestlers will breathe in oxygen between rounds, and footballers instead of sucking lemons at half-time will fill their lungs with oxygen, and he able to make the pace verv ''willing."