have been successful, like Lightbody, are most abstemious in their training and do not smoke. The best sprinters and middle-distance runners we have had have also been men who were very particular about their training for several months of the year. . . . In football, as in other endurance tests, there is no question at all in my mind that the man who smokes does not come up to the level of the general run of nonsmokers.

In 1906 Mr. Gianini of the New York Athletic Club wrote:

My opinion is expressed best by stating that I forbid the use of tobacco in any form by men under my charge while training.

The Arctic traveler, Nansen, was asked by a neighbor, "Did you take any alcohol with you when you left the Fram to make your heroic expedition by sledges ? " "No," said Nansen, "for if I had done so, I should never have returned."

CHAPTER IX

THE HEART WHEN IT IS AT WORK

Let some one hold a watch and be prepared to make reports while you and perhaps your friends test yourselves in various ways.

Stand with your finger

on your pulse at the wrist, and let him who holds the watch decide when the counting is to begin. He will say, "Get ready-now -begin." When he says that last word each child should, for himself, start to count the regular throb of the pulse which he feels under his finger. Let him keep on counting until, at the end of one minute, the timekeeper says, "Stop." You will then have your record.

COUNTING THE PULSE BEAT

If you are not excited, if you have not been exercising hard beforehand, if you have made no mistake in your counting, the number of beats which you feel will show

what your regular everyday pulse beat is. This is an important point gained. You have secured your standard for the standing position. You are ready for the next test.

Stand perfectly still, and, while the timekeeper follows the time again, open and shut your hand as fast and as hard as you can for an entire minute. Then once more count

your pulse. You may find that
it has gained a trifle. This will
depend on the vigor with which
you
have worked the muscles of
your hand. In any case, how-
ever, the muscles there are small
and you will not get much of
a result in the way of a more
rapid beat.

Turn, therefore, to the leg muscles of the body. Use them

HE COUNTS BOTH PULSE BEAT vigorously. Let each child run

AND HEART BEAT

up one flight of stairs and back, and at once count the pulse again. You will find a marked change. From eighty or over at the start, you have probably increased the count by one half or more.

In addition to the above tests make one more. Even while the fingers of your left hand are feeling the pulse in your right wrist, place your right hand over your heart. You will discover that the pulse beat and the

heart beat occur at the same instant. And now, if you were not uncomfortably out of breath after the run up one flight, try two flights for a second test and notice that the number of beats has increased both at the wrist and at the heart. You have proved for yourself that the pulse beat may be depended on to show what the rate of the heart beat is.

The following table shows what such exercise did for a small class of children in a New York school. The letters of the alphabet stand for the names of the children.

TESTS SHOWING EFFECTS OF EXERCISE ON THE

HEART BEAT PER MINUTE

Each child was tested again within a minute after the

run, and already the pulse was found to be beating more

slowly. This rapid return to the normal beat is the sign of a healthy heart.

At different times, on different days, test yourself in other ways. Count your pulse when you get up rested in the morning and when you go to bed tired at night. Count it before and after your cold bath in the morning. Count it before and after any variety of exercise that interests you. For example, run to school one morning, walk to school another morning, and compare the results of both with your standard. Compare the number of beats of the heart that has done hard work with those of the heart that has done light work, and learn to know what gives your heart the most exercise. Knowledge in this line will serve you well in deciding how to do the most for yourself in the shortest space of time. What you learn now will be applied in a later chapter.

It would be quite worth while to keep your different records written down in a notebook of some sort for future reference. Already, however, you have learned that exercise makes the heart beat faster, and that the larger the muscles are, and the harder the work you give them to do, running, for example, - the more

exercise will you give the heart. You have also learned that the pulse may always be trusted to tell important facts about the action of the heart.

It is for this last reason that a doctor feels the pulse of his patient. By the regular or the irregular beat of