What are the Benefits of Bicycling?
What are the Benefits of Bicycling? is an article arranged by Gilson Willets published in the Demorest's Family Magazine in may 1895.
The article includes 4 testimonies by Dr. Edward Payson Fowler, Dr. A. Conan Doyle, David Christie Murray and Dr. Grace Peckham Murray.
What are the Benefits of Bicycling?
(may 1895, p. 382)
(may 1895, p. 383)
Interesting and helpful opinions given specially for Demorest's Magazine by Dr. Edward Payson Fowler, Dr. A. Conan Doyle, David Christie Murray, and Dr. Grace Peckham Murray.
RIDE REGULARLY: DON'T OVER–RIDE.
DR. EDWARD PAYSON FOWLER, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE MICHAUX CLUB.
I was a beginner, last fall, but have made rapid progress, and now thoroughly enjoy bicycle riding. There is nothing like it for sport, no matter if a person weighs two hundred pounds.
I have recommended the use of the wheel to a great many of my women patients, — to so many, indeed, that not a few have returned to me to assure me that I am losing my practice on account of this new form of medicine.
I find the bicycle particularly beneficial to women who are afflicted with imaginary ills or with melancholia. It is a means for them to divert their minds from their supposed illness, and, in the end, helps to convince them of the truth that they are really in excellent bodily health. The only danger I have discovered in the use of the bicycle by women is that they are apt to overstrain; to ride too long, too far, at first. As is often the case with women, they take very little exercise, then, all of a sudden, they mount a wheel and ride far enough to last them a week. The result, of course, in this untrained manner of riding, is anything but beneficial. However, my experience convinces me that the ladies are learning to take their exercise awheel regularly, evenly, and consistently. Of course I do not wish to go on record as recommending the bicycle without discrimination to all women, for I am very emphatic in my belief that every woman should first consult her physician before adopting the silent steed as a form of exercise. I am willing to say, however, that my faith in the bicycle is boundless, and that it is a cure for many ills if taken in the proper quantities, in the right way, at the right time.
As for the bicycle for men I am sure it is most beneficial, especially to brain-workers. After a long day's work at my desk to which I have supplemented an evening at the same work, I feel, as all brain-workers do after the long tension, like collapsing and lying down to sleep, perhaps not as long as Rip Van Winkle, but anyway for six months. Instead of this, however, I now mount my wheel and go for a spin up the road, with nothing snore to engage my mind than the guidance of the steed I am riding. This is wherein it is most helpful for brain-workers: it brings into play every muscle of the body except the muscles and nerves which have been strained all day, thus giving rest to these while the others are exercised.
I think there is much opportunity for improvement in the detail of the construction of the bicycle, especially in the matter of what I might call a hygienic saddle. The proper saddle for health should have a cleft in the center, and I am pleading with the makers of bicycles to recognize the benefits of the saddle I have suggested.
I believe that the time is near when professional and business men, and, for that matter, everybody with an errand to do, will go from place to place atop a bicycle on asphalt pavements.
TESTIMONY OF AN ENTHUSIAST.
DR. A. CONAN DOYLE, PHYSICIAN, LECTURER AND AUTHOR.
When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hopes seem hardly worth having, just mount a bicycle and go for a good spin down the road, without thought of anything but the ride you are taking.
I have, myself, ridden the bicycle most during my practice as a physician and during my work in letters. In the morning or the afternoon, before or after work, as the mood o'ertakes me, I mount the wheel and am off for a spin of a few miles up or down the road from my country-place. I can only speak words of praise for the bicycle, for I believe that its use is commonly beneficial and not at all detrimental to health, except in the matter of beginners who overdo it.
The bicycle craze seems to me to be only in its infancy, for probably in time we shall witness the spectacle of our business men going to their offices mounted on the bicycle, instead of using the tramways.
As for the bicycle being more popular in America than in England, I am rather inclined to believe, from what I have seen in both countries, that its popularity on both sides of the water, among English-speaking people, is a pretty even thing.
AN ENGLISH POINT OF VIEW.
DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY, ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER AND NOVELIST.
I do not ride the bicycle myself, — indeed, not because I have not a decided inclination to do so, but because when a man is constantly traveling, day after day, from city to city in these your glorious United States, he has not much opportunity to give attention to the bicycle.
I have noticed that the bicycle craze here in your country has reached a point farther than a fad, — it amounts to a fever. You ride with tremendous earnestness, just as you do everything. But truth obliges me to add that you are two or three years behind France and England in the matter of riding the bicycle, for those countries long ago adopted the wheel, first for pleasure, then for business, and later on for a combination of both pleasure and business, till now its use may be said to be almost universal.
I am particularly impressed with the popularity which the wheel has acquired among women. I find them in every city riding in the streets, evidently enjoying the exercise and benefiting by it.
I remember Fanny Kemble wrote that the women of the United States appeared to her like so many exotics, so many hothouse flowers reared in an artificial atmosphere. Then she pictured them as pale, drooping shouldered, weak-kneed creatures, passing their time in lounging on divans and nursing dyspepsia. But that was years ago. If Miss Kemble could see your women now, she would behold a new type, the "new woman," physically speaking, in very truth. I have found the American woman of today rosy-cheeked, fully developed, even muscular; in point of healthful appearance she now compares favorably with the English girl. And the most healthful of your women are now riding the bicycle. I have every reason to believe that among other out-door sports and exercises which the American women have of late years adopted, the bicycle played, and will continue to. play, the most healthful and beneficial part. Hence, to the. bicycle, long life I It has become an integral part of modern civilization, and henceforth it will figure largely in medical science.
WHAT A WOMAN PHYSICIAN THINKS.
DR. GRACE PECKHAM MURRAY.
Certainly bicycling cannot injure any healthy young woman so long as she does not over-exert herself. Indeed, any sport which will keep young women out of doors, and give them healthful exercise no that circulation is stimulated, is something which should be favored by everyone. As soon as a young woman has learned to balance herself and to work the pedals without any more thought than she would give to moving her feet in walking, she can then cover long distances without the slightest injury resulting from exertion.
The bicycle is certainly a great boon to young women who cannot afford horses and carriages, for here is a steed which they can purchase at a small price, and keep at a small cost. It has been a source of new vigor to the type-writer and stenographer, and it has given new strength to the school-girl, and fresh courage to the school-teacher. If there is any injury at all to health in bicycling, it is that single danger which is common to all forms of exercise, namely, untrained over-exertion. This seems to be the trouble attendant upon the playing of tennis by young women. For men, any form of exercise, as a rule, does not involve any extra exertion ; for men are usually accustomed to constant muscular endeavor, and are, therefore, not so likely to over-strain in the same proportion as women.
Two thirds of our young women, in the matter of muscular endeavor, fall far short of what muscular development should be. The cause of this is undoubtedly the non-adaptability of woman's dress to any great muscular exertion.
In the matter of the hygiene of bicycle riding there is one item in which women have the advantage of men; for women, as a rule, take the proper position when riding, that is, an upright and natural one, while the men lean over in a most unnatural position, which results in almost permanently round shoulders.
Arranged by Gilson Willets.
