Gymnastics in heart diseases / by Claës J. Enebuske.

  • Enebuske, Claës Julius.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gymnastics in heart diseases / by Claës J. Enebuske. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    However, the postures and movements mentioned are not so exactly defined gymnastic remedies as can be given. By rough comparison, they may be said to stand in a similar relation to the exactly defined gym¬ nastic movements and postures, as the crude' drugs, such as roots, barks, etc., stand to the active principal substances, alkaloids, glycosides, etc., which by chemi¬ cal processes may be eliminated from them. The pro¬ gression they represent is not an even, continuous, successive progression, but a progression by discon¬ tinuities, the members of the series distanced from each other by considerable intervals. Finally, they do not contain any suggestion of the idea of a gym¬ nastic day’s order or a prescription of a number of exercises, which combined give better result than one form of exercise alone. If, however, we elaborate further the principles, spoken or unspoken, but surely involved in the em¬ ployment of the postures and movements which I have enumerated and which are prescribed by all phy¬ sicians in dealing with heart diseases, if we elaborate them so far in details as present knowledge and ex¬ perience admits of, — we will reach practical conclu¬ sions that shall resemble the distinct method of gym¬ nastic treatment which will be presented in the further development of my subject. As the title of my paper implies, it is not my pur¬ pose to discuss the therapy of heart diseases in toto. What the therapy of heart diseases in general teaches, stands or falls with or without the gymnastic treat¬ ment of them. It is only one of the remedies at dis¬ posal which claims its own place among the rest. It is a fact, that in comparatively recent times, or since the first half of this century, perhaps from the early thirties, attempts have been made to understand and bring to practical applicability the effects of gymnas¬ tic movements and postures upon heart diseases. The result has been, that at present three distinct methods