The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    55/684 (page 31)
    ATMOSPHERE ATMOSPHERE 3* athlete, Mr. C. B. Fry, has pointed out, any one whose diet is simple, wholesome and temperate does not need to change it appreciably for training, for there is nothing mys- terious or abstruse about training diet: ordinary, simple, homely food is all that is required, and cannot be improved upon in any material degree. It is, however, obvious that if a man is in the habit of eat- ing and drinking luxuriously, he must alter his habitual diet if he wishes to succeed in athletics : he must make a change in favour of wholesome simplicity, regular- ity and temperance. In essentials there is no difference between the best diet for health and the best diet for training. Owing to the increased amount of exercise taken during training an increased amount of nutriment will probably be re- quired to make good the waste of muscular tissue, but it should be borne in mind that the increase will, in most cases, be very trivial. The old superstition among trainers that athletes require large quantities of meat is entirely unjustified by ex- perience. Another old superstition among trainers was that water should only be taken in very limited quantities. This also has been shown to be without any founda- tion in fact. ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS, EFFECT OF, ON THE HEALTH The air is not only the means at times of communicating poisons, but its various conditions as to temperature, dryness, weight, etc., may prove the immediate cause of disease. As regards the tempera- ture of the air, it is of great import- ance whether the air is in motion or at rest. Air which is only a few degrees colder than the surface of the body, but which passes rapidly over it, is found to have a much greater cooling effect on the system than motionless air of a much lower temperature. In cold climates— especially when the cold is damp and depressing—we are more likely to encounter diseases of the lungs and air-passages ; whilst fever is to be looked for in warm climates. The latter, however, often arises in a great measure from the heat- promoting vegetable putrefaction, and consequently malaria, and this is more particularly the case when the heat is accompanied by mois- ture. The action of moist air on the body is easily understood. When the air is at the same time both hot and moist, the large blood- vessels are stimulated to increased action by the heat, which also re- laxes the pores of the skin, and in this way perspiration is promoted. Since the air, however, is already loaded with moisture, it refuses to take up the moisture from the body, and, as a natural conse- quence, we have a turgid condition of the vessels and a sensation of heaviness and weight. This ex- plains why it is that, in what is known as “ muggy weather ”—al- though the atmosphere is really lighter than at other times—we ordinarily complain of heaviness and oppression. During cold damp weather, on the other hand, the perspiration is checked by the cold, and the air makes no demand for the moisture. In dry cold air we experience just the opposite effect to that of moist hot weather. The cold has a tendency to check evapo- ration from the skin, whilst the dry air demands moisture. As a natural consequence people feel cold and starved, as we should expect, from the fact that a demand is made upon the body, whilst at the same time the ability to supply