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Copyright, 1$13, by the Star Compaiy. jBr.eat Britain Rights Reserved.• •I-''-'-::-:-:.'***:-*-vXv,n\vav.va*.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.*.*.“S%v.wrnmmmk:First position in Walking on the Hands to Cure Stomach IllsOWN, Algernon!”I 1 “All fours, Vincent!”“Right, left, all fours, walk, Gladys!”“The naughty burrs hurt your dear little hands. What a £hame, mother’s dear little Frances!”No, these remarks are not addressed to a dog, nor to a horse, nor to cats. They are the exclamations of relatives adjuring the members of their families to drop to the ancient position of man for their svomach’s sake.Professor Heinrich Schock, the eminent biologist of Munich, has asserted that he can cure the great x^merican disease by reverting to the attitudes of our ancestors when they leaped from bough to bough of the giant trees in the family jungle. The cry of the learned German is, “To your soles, 0, Americans! To your palms and soles! Thus only can you banish the ache from your stomach and restore the vanished rosesto your cheeks.”And the marvel is that society has heeded, society that was ever heedless!“It is perhaps because the idea tickles their funny bone,” said a critic of the all-fours movement who had himself practised it. “It is almost as diverting to see your friends make monkeys of themselves as tohave a real monkey as guest of honor at a dinner.”At any rate, it has become the tad; as greatly the fad as it was for plump ladies to walk or stand for twenty minutes after dinner. The plump ladies believed the mild exercise after a meal prevented distention of the stomach and abdomen. Society of both sexes walks and trots on all fours for the same reason.Professor Heinrich Schock, watching a party of passengers descending from an ocean liner to a tender at Cherbourg, said: “Americans, all!Can you not see with the glasses thepasty faces, the worried look, the too large stomachs? Too much eating, too little exercise! Ah, I shouldlike to cure them.” He went hack tohis laboratory r Munich and studiedblood on a * a specimen of American blood nlt;, tad secured, and saw that the white corpuscles wereproportionally too many.The distended stomach, the inability to assimilate food, the chalk-ily white faces were all symptoms of deterioration, he believed, and to prevent deterioration he advised a return to primitive methods.“To rest the stomach, to stimulate the circulation, to afford a freer flow of the gastric juices, to permit the gall to pass more readily from the gall bladder into the stomach by widening the opening into it, for all these reasons descend often to the posture of your ancestors,” he advised.While visiting in Berlin he offered his theory at a dinner at which several Americans were guests.“Try it,” he urged, and a long, lean Kentuckian, sallow of cheek and yellow of eyeball, complied. After the Kentuckian had made one round of the table others followed, Professor Schock reviewing the strange procession.“Straight, there! You’re leaning too far to the right!” he called to a flushed young woman from New York, who wore her stays a bit too tight for grace.“Come, come! Don’t try to look pretty! Head lower, spine higher! The trunk should form an inclined plane with the head as its lowest point!” he roared at a fat Philadelphia millionaire.“Don’t wobble!” shouted theTeuton at a matron who, though charming, was a hit affected, and whose bronze pumps were a shade too tight.“I feel better,” asserted the Kentuckian when his tall figure returned to the normal perpendicular. Noticeably brighter were his eyes androsier his skin.“So do I,” said the middle-aged matron, whose figure was “wobbly.” And straightway each became a missionary to his or her country on the efficacy of the walking on all-fours treatment for the Americanailment, indigestion. The cult hasgrown amazingly, though generally £secretly. gIf your host asks you to excuse shim and disappears after dinner you3W5-MSA Hand-Walking Class in a German Hospital. It is Made Up of Children Suffering from Intestinal Indigestion.Polly Chase, the Noted American Actress, Who Has Made Such a Success in England, Is an Enthusiastic Supporter of the Cure. This Photograph Shows Her in Her After-Breakfast Walk.TookA Patient Wearing Protective Elbow, Knee and Toe Harness £= Preventstomach” is great. When the body drops to the support of the palms and soles this strain is also removed.Professor Schock’s argument that the beasts of the field have fewer stomach and intestinal troubles than has man is doubtless correct Animals suffer, though in less degree,from heaviness after eating, an acid condition of the stomach, clogging of the intestines and flatulence, than do human beings. He contends, and his contention is not amiss, that the gastric juices are prone to Settle in, as it were, the lowest pocket of the stomach, when that organ is in the position necessitated by the upright position of the body, whereas when the body has descended to the original latitude the gastric juice has a better chancy to permeate the food,thing. That something is the duo-%denum, the intestine so named because it is as large as two fingers, that opens out of the stomach and into the large intestines. There is also a strain upon the apex of the stomach caused by the weight of the stomach dragging at it as the parachute of a balloon drags at the upholding ropes. The more food the stomach habitually contains the greater the weightWhen the walking posture is shifted from perpendicular to horizontal there is no such drag. So regarding the solar plexus, that collection or network of nerves in the •thorax just in front of the stomach. jTlTft strain of an upright position MRi this so ca’Jed “brain of theBy Dr. Carleton SimonWALKING on all-fours, unlike many other fads, has a strong foundation in reason. The principle chiefly involved, and which the physicians of Europe apply to the American complaint, dyspepsia, is that by changing the relative position of the stomach its pressure is relieved and congestion is lessened.While walking in our acquired posture—for there is little doubt that we had to learn to walk upright, the race first walking as the quadrupeds do, on all fours—the stomach, so fo^spe^ “settles.” And when it settles uP°a so*U5-• ^CUj£VA.TUEEmcmwn?r% ^-intestinesDiagrams Showing the Position Stomach Is in While One Is Walking and the Position When One Is on All Fours.because the food covers a larger at corsets. I believe that men dress as other women do. Havearea of the stomach. should not hold themselves in at the better reason for wearing a cert-A chief reason for this fad that waistline by tight belts. The neces- gown than that the woman next dchas come to us from Germany by sity to take these off. if there were or the woman around the corrway of England and France is that no other reason, would win my ad- wears such a one. If she is twalking on all fours gives to the vocacy of the new exercise for the and dark and you are short astomach greater mobility. Whatever cure of dyspepsia. blonde that difference is an unlt;exercises the organs, if not unduly, Certainly I see no harm in it. If swerabie reason for dressing as i is well for their development The it will induce lazy persons, or per- like her as possible,stomach being less packed, so to sons who have not the opportunity If I were allowed to bring but ospeak, by surrounding organs, hav- for vigorous out-of-door exercise, to gospel of beauty to thisgcountry,lug more room in this new posture, run about their rooms or their roofs would be: “Seekit moves more freely. I am a foe to or gardens in the all-fours posture dress.” Dress for yall constriction of the internal for their stomach’s sake, I can see neighbor, yourorgans. My opposition does not end good, and no evil, as at result. or your dearest
Newspaper Details
Chicago Examiner
Chicago, Illinois, US
Sun, Apr 06, 1913
Page 58
Full Page
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Anonymous
USA 21 Dec 2020
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