File:Rational therapy (1919) (14589468340).jpg

Identifier: rationaltherapy00lerc (find matches)
Title: Rational therapy
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Lerch, Otto
Subjects: Therapeutics, Physiological Therapeutics
Publisher: (Troy, N.Y.) The Southworth Company
Contributing Library: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

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neuritis. A number of observersreport success with this therapeutic measure in spinal diseases.Arterial pressure rises during exercise and is compensated bydecreasing tone in vessel walls and widening of the arteries. Agreater quantity of oxygen is inhaled and carbondioxide exhaled.Fat is burnt up and water is lost. Exercise is the most valuable method to reduce the obese.We can use it to treat the whole body or one joint, one muscle orone group of muscles and a diseased joint or wasted muscle maybe brought by methodical and appropriate exercise to perfectfunctioning. It is the blood brought to the diseased parts thatcures. Exercise influences blood distribution in the organs. Itacts afferent and efferent, veins are emptied and arterial bloodfollows. If we contract the muscles of the arms, the blood ispressed into the chest and if we raise them we obtain the sameresult by gravity. Swinging of the legs without muscular con-traction draws blood into them by centrifugal force and raising
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massage; and e^xi^rcise;. Ill of the legs when in the reclining position acts efferent upon theextremities and afferent to the abdominal organs by gravity.Exercise is a method of treatment especially useful. It influencesthe blood and lymph stream at will; it burns up fat and wastematter and removes toxic substances from the blood. It is inex-pensive and therefore can be employed freely in the treatment ofthe poor, and it is of great value in all chronic diseases of thelungs, chest and abdominal organs, in convalescence after theacute infectious diseases, in surgical and gynecological affectionsand invaluable in orthopedic surgery. As a prophylactic measureto preserve health it can not be surpassed and though it is some-what tedious, the habit is quickly established, lightening the labor,and its combination with the air bath makes it refreshing and lessburdensome. To the room gymnastics the usual physiologicexercise, walking, horseback riding, rowing, golf, tennis, etc., areadded when

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