> This is the same WSJ editorial board staff who (with
> interviewees) suggested a few months ago that cyclists
> would not desirable candidates for military service ...
=v= Wow, I missed that one. It's not the first time that
argument has been made, though. See below.
<_Jym_>
=------------8<-------------Cut-Here-------------8<------------=
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jym/2922829189/
NO "SCORCHERS" MUSTERED IN
Recruiting Officer at Chicago Refuses
to Pass Habitual Fast Bicycle
Riders Into the Service
CHICAGO, June 30 1898. -- Dr. S. C. Stanton, who has charge
of the examination of recruits for the United States regular
army in this city, has caused a sensation among medical men by
declaring that a habitual fast rider of bicycles or a "scorcher"
is unfit, physically, to serve as a soldier in the army.
He has made this matter the subject of his severest tests in the
examinations of applicants for enlistment, and many men have
been rejected because of a "bicycle heart," as the practitioner
terms it, caused by excessive exercise in riding a wheel. The
doctor says: "The persistent scorching, or fast riding, has a
tendency to enlarge the heart and thus interfere with its proper
action." Few enthusiastic bicyclists can resist the temptation
to 'scorch,' and as a consequence the physician believes that
the heart of a large proportion of this class of riders is more
or less affected.
"This being the case, they would be unable to endure the
hardships that army life imposes and should not be permitted to
enter the service. The excitement caused by war is also attended
by deleterious effects to those whose hearts are in any degree
affected."
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