Running Recollections and How to Train

136 deposited. The bones and theirligaments, themuscles and their tendons—allthe finer and all the more flexible parts of the body—are as properly a secretion, as the salivathat flows from the month, or the moistnre that bedews the surface. The health of all the parts, andtlieir soundness of structure, depends upon this perpetual absorption and perpetual renovation ;and exercise, by promoting at once absorption and secretion,promotes life without hurrying it, renovates allthe parts, andpreserves them apt and fit for every office. When the human frame is thus capable of being altered and renovated, it is not surprising thathe art of training should be carried to a degree of perfection almost incredible ; and that bycertain processes thebreath, strength, and courage ofman should be so greatly improved as to enable him to perform the most laborious under­ takings. That such effects have been produced is un­ questionable, being fully exemplified in the astonishing exploits of our most celebrated pedestrians, which are the infallible results of preparatory discipline. The skilful trainer attendsto the state of the bowels, the lungs, and the skin; and he uses such means as will reduce the fat, and, at thesame time, invigorate the muscular fibres. The patient is purged by drastic medicines; he is sweated by walking under a weight of clothes, and by lying between feather beds; his limbs are roughly rubbed ; his diet is beef or mutton ; his drink strong ale ;and he is gradually inured to exercise by repeated trials in walking and running. By attenuating the fat, emptying the cellular substance, hardening the muscular fibre, and improving the breath, a man of the ordinary frame may be made to fight for one hour with the utmost exertion of strength and courage, or to go over100 miles in 24 hours. The most effectual process for training is that practised by Captain Barclay, and the particular mode which he has