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By Root 16213 0

aide, you diminish the pain on both. Hypochondria is the name of one of the regions of the stomach — a very instructive etymology. The blood of a melancholy man is thick and slow ; that of a lively man, clear and quick. A natural conclusion therefore, is, that the remedy would be found in putting the blood into action. “By ceaseless action all that is, subsists.” Exercise is the best means of effecting it, as the impulse given by artificial stimuli is too sudden, the effect too transitory, and the cost to nature too great. Plato had so high an opinion of the medicinal powers of exercise for disorders of the mind, that he said it was even a cure for a wounded conscience.

The want of exercise, says Dr. Blackmore, is a preparatory cause of the gout, and this is warranted by long experience ; for instance, the sedentary lawyer, and the unwearied student who continually converse with their books, and seldom employ themselves in exercise, thereby often contract the gout. The sauntering, supine, and oscitant gentleman, by his birth and great possessions, exempt from labor and exercise, therefore is entitled to diseases.”

”If much study,” says Dr. Cheyne, “ be joined to the want of exercise, it becomes then doubly prejudicial, and will, if long pursued, ruin the strongest constitutions.

”Hard study never fails to destroy the appetite, and produce all the symptoms already enumerated, with headaches, vertigoes, costiveness, wind, crudities, apoplexies, and palsy.

”If inactivity and want of exercise are joined with luxury, the solids become relaxed and weakened, and the acrimony of the salts and humors gradually increase, then chronical disorders are produced, such as gout, erysipelas, rheumatisms, with all the pains, miseries, and torments arising in this low sunk state of the constitution.”

It is difficult to convince sedentary people, but it is a duty to attempt persuading them, that their usual habits waste the spirits, destroy health, and shorten life. Hundreds in each of our large cities die every year for want of exercise.

It is by no means necessary that we should cultivate Gymnastics “after the manner of the ancients,” but only so far as may be requisite to maintain the even tenor of existence. The state of society in towns continually imposes obstructions to health, and offers inducements to the slothful, in the shape of palliatives, which ultimately increase the “miseries of human life.” Exercise is both a prevention and a remedy ; but we must not mistake — diligence is not neceesarily exercise.

Our ordinary pastimes are now almost all within doors ; those of our progenitors in England were more in the open air. They danced on the green in the day-time ; we, if we dance at all, move about in warm rooms at night ; and then there are the “late hours,” the “making a toil of pleasure,” the lying in bed late the next morning, the incapacity to perform duties in consequence of “recreation!” The difference to health is immense — the difference to morals is not less. If reflection be troublesome, read the proceedings in courts of justice and then reflect. We have much to unlearn.

The above Engraving is an accurate representation of

THE INTERIOR OF MR. BARRETT’S GYMNASIUM,

WALNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA.

An institution which has met with decided encouragement, and which, we are happy to add, deserves it. Mr. B. has introduced many improvements upon former plans, in regard to his machinery, regulations, and exercises. Some general idea of these latter may be gained from an inspection of the engraving. In our next number, we will enter into minute details respecting this and similar institutions — giving an entire code of “Instructions for Gymnasts.” It would be a source of great picture to us if we could be the means, in any degree, of exciting intcreet upon a subject which, however frivolous it may appear, is yet ene of so much real importance.

A CHAPTER ON FIELD SPORTS AND MANLY PASTIMES (PART II)

GYMNASTICS AND GYMNASIA.

IN our last number we gave, in brief, the History of Gymnastics and Gymnasia, and dwelt,