Most consumptive invalids are indisposed to exercise, and particularly
indisposed to employ their arms. Many attempt training of the shoulders
and chest, and abandon it in disgust. But if in the systematic
performance of the exercises other persons are interested, the patient
cannot withdraw. Besides, those exercises in which others participate
have social attractions, to which consumptives, as a class, are
peculiarly susceptible.
For example, a consumptive young lady has brothers who assist her in
certain prescribed exercises. These are to be executed twice a day, at
hours when the brothers are at home. There is an affectionate interest
in the group with reference to the pleasant duty. It is not forgotten.
Suppose the brother is the patient, the sisters or mother will act as
assistants. In every family such exercises are sure of the proper
attention. I need scarcely say, that, if the patient undertake to
exercise alone, with dumb-bells or some similar means, it will soon grow
tiresome, and be abandoned.
Moreover, it is a matter of no small moment that other members of the
family--who are not unlikely to be predisposed to the same malady--will
thus secure a series of profitable exercises. I must add my conviction,
that by no other variety of training can the efforts be so accurately
directed to the muscles whose weakness permits the distortion of chest
which is often the exciting cause of the malady.
With a good-sized room, and open windows, the air may be pure, while the
exercise will prove the occasion of a thorough ventilation of the house.
I am indebted to Friedrich Robert Nitzsche of Dresden for the drawings
of the accompanying cuts. His works are invaluable.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
Fig. 1. Assistant, standing behind the patient, grasps his hands.
Patient draws up the hands, as shown in the dotted lines, assistant
resisting. Patient forces his hands back again to the first position,
assistant resisting. Repeat five times.
In this, as in the other exercises advised, _the resistance should be
adapted to the patient's strength_.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
Fig. 2. Assistant, standing behind the patient, who is seated, grasps
his uplifted hands. Patient draws down the hands, as shown by the dotted
lines, assistant resisting. Patient forces the hands back to the first
position, assistant resisting. Repeat three times.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
Fig. 3 shows an improvement on Fig. 2 for those cases in which, either
from the strength of the patient or the weakness of the assistant, it
might prove more agreeable to employ two assistants.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
Figs. 4 and 5 represent an exercise which hardly needs description. The
patient should exert the positive force in both directions, the
assistants resisting.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
Fig. 6 or 7 may be used next in order.
[Illustration: Fig. 8]
[Illustration: Fig. 9]
Fig. 8 shows an exercise valuable in the treatment of drooping
shoulders. When the patient has raised his arms, as in the dotted lines,
he may bring them back to the horizontal in front, without the
interference of the assistant.
Fig. 9 illustrates an exercise which may be used twenty or thirty times,
if managed with gentleness.
I cannot here undertake to say how often these exercises should be
employed, nor in what cases; they are given merely as suggestive. A
complete series of "Mutual Help Exercises," adapted to the treatment of
the consumptive, includes a large number, many of which are not only
valuable, but cannot fail to deeply interest all concerned.
If to the Mutual Help Exercises it is desired to add those in which the
health-seeker can work alone, I would suggest the new exercises with the
wooden dumbbell, wand, and club, and the one hundred and seven exercises
with Schreber's Pangymnastikon.
Consumption--genuine tuberculous consumption--can be cured, even in the
stage of softening or abscess. Dr. J. Hughes Bennett, Professor Calkins,
Dr. Parrish, Dr. Carswell, Laennec, Professor Lee, Dr. Abernethy, Sir
James Clarke, and fifty other distinguished authors, declare their faith
in its curability.
In not less than a thousand _post-mortem_ examinations, the lungs have
exhibited scars, concretions, or other indubitable evidences of recovery
from genuine consumption. I have cured many cases with exercise and
other hygienic agents.