The Scientific Scrapbook

Do athletics shorten one's life span? Does rowing hurt the heart? These questions have only partly been answered by modern research.

At present the Hygiene Department is working on an experiment which should be invaluable in removing some of the ignorance which envelops our present knowledge of this problem.

Hearts X-Rayed Yearly

To this end crewmen for the last few years have had their hearts X-rayed yearly and have been exposed to such a barrage of physical tests as only a doctor can think up. Blood tests, blood counts, and a host of other checks have been brought into action.

To date this enterprising experiment has accomplished nothing, at least nothing that can be reported. Tom Bolles says that it will be ten or fifteen years before the results will be known with anything approaching scientific exactitude.

In the meantime oarsmen at the Newell Boathouse will continue to get their hearts X-rayed without charge and will have this privilege for ten or fifteen years after they leave here.

Has Precedent in England

This Harvard experiment has for its precedent an interesting bit of research which was carried out in England. Drs. P. H. S. Hartely and G. F. Liewellyn investigated the records of the life span of the crews of Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England for a 100-year period, 1829 to 1928.

They compared the actual deaths during the several periods (from 1829 to 1862, 1863 to 1893, 1894 to 1923, and 1924 to 1928) with the standard tables (the general average of healthy men of similar ages). In each of the age groups the oarsmen lived longer than the standard groups.

Over the whole period (100 years), the life span of the oarsmen was much longer than the average life expectancy. The non-oarsmen were all healthy men accepted for life insurance.

Life Span Increases

Of course, there is the point that oarsmen would naturally be stronger physically than the average men their age, besides getting good food, fresh air, and exercise. However, there was one gratifying fact learned from the investigation; while the life span of the oarsmen has heretofore always been much longer, the life span of the standard group (not oarsmen) during the last few years has been gradually growing longer, so that it now nearly approaches that of the oarsmen. This shows that the life span in general has been increasing.

These research workers say that the ideal comparison would be to compare the life span of the oarsmen with that of their contemporary fellow students, instead of comparing it with those who would not have the same advantages as to food, air, and exercise as these college oarsmen.

This, of course, is just what the Harvard experiment will do. The oarsmen's life spans will be compared with those of their non-athletic classmates.

Rowing Not Harmful

Dr. Bock sees no reason why rowing should hurt a normal individual who is in good condition. But there are many peculiar situations which may arise even when an oarsman is in A-1 shape.

For example, last year at the end of the Yale race at New London an oarsman suddenly slumped over in his seat. He was operating under an old psychological reflex which required that after he had rowed a certain definite time he should stop and rest.

Unfortunately there was a strong ad- verse tide that day which lengthened the race by two minutes. When the oarsman had rowed for the usual length of time, his old reflex went into effect and he stopped--despite the fact that there were still two minutes to go.

Alumni Grumble

In connection with incidents like this many alumni have wanted to know why there is not closer supervision of oarsmen. Bock thinks it's great that people are interested in this sort of thing, but he emphasizes that there is a good deal of supervision anyway.

"We'd have a bunch of hypochondriacs on our hands if we examined all oarsmen every two weeks," he says. He stresses the intimate knowledge the coaches have of their men in all organized sports, such as track, crew, football, and swimming.

"We fall down on intramural sports," he admits, "but that is the price you have to pay for the freedom from supervision in informal sports." Bock says that the share of injuries is much greater in intramural sports than in organized sports