in all times excited the
interest and investigation of capable physicians.

The Greeks were famous for their love of athletic pastimes; and
classical study serves powerfully to strengthen the belief that no
institution exercised greater influence than the public contests of
Greece in molding national character and producing that admirable type
of personal and intellectual beauty that we see reflected in her art
and literature. These contests were held at four national festivals,
the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmean games. On these
occasions every one stopped labor, truce was declared between the
States, and the whole country paid tribute to the contestants for the
highly-prized laurels of these games. Perhaps the enthusiasm shown in
athletics and interest in physical development among the Greeks has
never been equaled by any other people. Herodotus and all the Greek
writers to Plutarch have elaborated on the glories of the Greek
athlete, and tell us of the honors rendered to the victors by the
spectators and the vanquished, dwelling with complacency on the fact
that in accepting the laurel they cared for nothing but honor. The
Romans in "ludi publici," as they called their games, were from first
to last only spectators; but in Greece every eligible person was an
active participant. In the regimen of diet and training the physicians
from the time of Hippocrates, and even before, have been the
originators and professional advisers of the athlete. The change in the
manner of living of athletes, if we can judge from the writings of
Hippocrates, was anterior to his time; for in Book V of the "Epidemics"
we read of Bias, who, "suapte nature vorax, in choleram-morbum incidit
ex carnium esu, praecipueque suillarum crudarum, etc."

From the time of the well-known fable of the hero who, by practicing
daily from his birth, was able to lift a full-grown bull, thus
gradually accustoming himself to the increased weight, physiologists
and scientists have collaborated with the athlete in evolving the
present ideas and system of training. In his aphorisms Hippocrates
bears witness to the dangers of over-exercise and superabundant
training, and Galen is particularly averse to an art which so
preternaturally develops the constitution and nature of man; many
subsequent medical authorities believed that excessive development of
the human frame was necessarily followed by a compensatory shortening
of life.

The foot-r