Why? The Science of Athletics

. HUMAN MECHANISM mass of loose, fatty tissue filled with delicate vessels which are easily suffused by any rise in blood-pressure, such as is inseparable from violent effort. - Violent laughter, or violent weeping, cause a person to close the lids instinc– tively for the protection of the delicate vessels of the orbit and the eyeball ; and still more, and for the same purpose, does a person about to sneeze, or seized with a severe fit of coughing, shut his eyes tightly. This instinctive shutting of the eyes tightly is Nature's means of protecting the blood vessels in the eyes, by supplying counter-pressure against the eyeballs, which have a tendency to protrude from the bony cup which constitutes the orbit when they become swollen and congested. They are held back in place by the constrictor muscle of the eye. Looked at from another angle we shall be considering presently, it may be argued that additional work is put on the heart in this way, which is true. None the less it is a question of values ; the additional strain on the heart can at the worst be but very small, and meantime the vessels of the eye are extremely -delicate ; and so it is a mistake ·to tell the athlete not to shut his eyes, unless he is a runner and therefore almost bound to keep them open in duty to himself. If one of these vessels does burst there is bleeding into the retina and the eye becomes_ seriously injured. Again, if an athlete is constantly showing even slight engorgement of the eyes after effort he should be sent to a doctor, for in some forms of high blood pressure you get a rupture in the vessels of the eye with subsequent loss of sight. - On the other hand, the coach should not be led away into the theory that because an athlete shows a smiling face under alleged strain, _and is therefore not risking his eyes or putting unnecessary pressure on his heart, all is going well, because it is a fact that the athlete whose expression does not denote violent effort cannot be making a violent effort. - Take a glance at the picture (Fig-.J- 3, Plate r) of Sweeney