The Code of Health and Longevity

122 APPEND I X . That this regimen and exercife would have the fame «fle<9b in former times, as in the prefent day, cannot be doubted. The ancient caflus, which confided of leathern thongs, lludded with knobbs of lead or copper, and con­ torted round the hand, muft have added greatly to the force of a blow. Thefe ftraps were indeed carried up to the elbow, by which the armwas in fome meafure pro­ tected. I doubt, however, whether any of our modem pugilifts would venture to encounter fuch additional means of offence. By the phyficians of antiquity, the athletic temperament was by no means reckoned a heal­ thy ftate of the conftitution. Hippocrates confidered this condition of extreme bodily health as peculiarly prone to difeafe. Qalen, who, as has been already fta- ted, was praftically acquaintedwith the fubjeft, afferts that befides the various accidents to which they were ne- ceflarily expofed in the courfe of their exercifes and combats, the Athlete were liable to rupture of blood- wlTels in the lungs, to apoplexy, and to lethargic com­ plaints. To obviate the laft of which, they were per­ mitted occafionally to have jintercourfe with the female fex. He fays they rarely preferved their vigour, fo as to be fit to appear in public for a longer period than five years , and he particularly mentions, thathey were con­ sidered as a fliort-lived race of meij. Thefe circumftan- ces are perhaps chiefly to be attributed to their moral conduft. For when not under a coujrfe of difcipline to fit them for the combat, they indulged themfelves in every kindof drunkennefs and debauchery fo that by all the authors of antiquity who mention them, their manners are reprobated as being extremely diffblute. Although that flate of extreme fulnefs of blood and high tenfion of fibre, which is calculated to enable a man 'to exerthis full flrength for a fliort period, may not be that