Keeping Fit - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... MASTERFULNESS AND THE GREAT OUT OF DOORS Make good thy standing-ground and move the world. --Goethe. O what a glory doth this world put on To him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks On duties well performed, and days well spent! H. W. LOkQFELLOW. "I Would rank exercise and outdoor life far above any known remedies for the cure of disease," says Dr. Austin Flint. I would go further and say that rational exercise and outdoor life are the best conservers of health and prevention of disease. The polar bear "Peary" died recently in the Bronx Zoological Garden, New York, from heart disease. Imprisoned wild animals frequently die of fatty degeneration of the heart, due to lack of exercise in their captivity. The more wild and savage they are, the more they struggle against this fate. Watch a newly caged lion, or even the average lion of a menagerie, as he paces restlessly and, in his waking hours, ceaselessly to and fro, frequently lashing his tail. He is instinctively seeking, not merely to be free, but even more to find relief from a feeling of oppression that tugs at his throat and lungs and heart, from lack of the customary strong, full aeration of his blood through the 600,000,000 cells of his lungs. But for this protective restlessness he would die much more quickly. Note how persistently a squirrel fights against this oppression, if given a revolving wheel in which to exercise. He is not working so hard purely from love of sport. Activity is part and parcel of his natural life; and, when he is confined, the instinct which prompts to activity becomes almost a mania with him as he urges the frenzied whirl of his so-called "merry-goround," which is really but a prisoner's treadmill to him....