with drink, taking up the room of good solid food ; but to go to the other extreme, and to spoil his appetite for want of an extra half pint at dinner, or a glass of water at bedtime, is a relic of barbarism. The appetite is generally greatest about the end of the first week of training. By that time the frame has got sufficiently into trim to stand long spells of work at not too rapid a pace. The stomach has begun to accustom itself to the extra demands put upon it, and as at this time the daily waste and loss of flesh is preater than later on, when there is less flesh to lose, so the natural craving to replenish the waste of the day is greater than at a later period. At this time the thirst is great, and though drinking out of hours should be forbidden, yet the appetite should not, for reasons previously stated, be suffered to grow stale for want of sufficient liquid at meal times in proportion to the solids consumed.
Such views would have been reckoned scandalously heretical twenty-five or more years ago, but the writer feels that he is unorthodox in good company, and is glad to find Mr. E. D. Brickwood, in his treatise on ‘ Boat-racing, 1875, laying down his own experiences on the same subject to just the same effect, Mr. Brickwood’s remarks on the subject of ‘thirst’ (as per his index) may be studied with advantage by modern trainers. He says (page 201) :—
As hunger is the warning voice of nature telling us that our bodies are in need of a fresh supply of food, so thirst is the same voice warning us that a fresh supply of liquid is required. Thirst, then, being, like hunger, a natural demand, may safely he gratified, and with water in preference to any other fluid, The prohibition often put upen the use of water or fluid in training may often be carried too far. To limit a man to a pint or two of liquid per day, when his system is throwing off three or four times that quantity through the medium of the ordinary secretions, is as unreasonable as to keep him on half-rations. The general thirst experienced by the whole system, consequent upon great bodily exertion or extreme external heat, has but one means of cure—drink, in the simplest form attainable, Local thirst, usually limited to the mucous linings of the mouth and throat, may be allayed by rinsing the mouth and gargling the throat, sucking the stone of stone fruit, or a pebble, by which to excite the glands in the affected part, or even by
dipping the hands into cold water. Fruit is here of very little