(Epigr. vii, 32.)
According to Thucydides, the Lacedemonians were the first who rubbed their bodies with oil before wrestling. (i, 1.) Pliny mentions the use of oil before the gymnastic exercises as a luxury introduced by the Greeks. It appears from him that cheap aromatics were sometimes added to the oil. He further relates that some barbarous nations used butter instead of oil. (Hist. Nat. xi, 41.)
Athenæus mentions that Antiochus Epiphanes supplied the wrestlers at Daphne with oil of saffron, of marjoram, and the like. (Deipn. v.)
Lucian makes Solon say to Anacharsis, that oil produces the same effect upon the living body as upon leather, softening it, and rendering it stronger and less apt to break. (Anacharsis.)
The poets describe Venus as preparing herself for exercise by being rubbed with fragrant ointments, whereas Minerva disdained to use anything but common oil. See Callimachus (Lav. Pall.) and Sophocles (ap. Athen. Deipnos. xv, 35.)
The Roman emperors, and other luxurious persons, often made use of perfumed ointments instead of oil. See Suetonius (in Vita Caligulæ), Lampridius (in Vita Heliogabali.) It would appear that under the empire the people of Rome were supplied gratuitously with oil in their public baths. (Lamp. c. 24, and Burman, de V. R. c. iii.)
SECT. XVI.—ON EXERCISES.
Exercise is a violent motion. The limit to its violence should be a hurried respiration. Exercise renders the organs of the body hardy and fit for their functional actions. It makes the absorption of food stronger, and expedites its assimilation; and it improves nutrition by increasing heat. It also clears the pores of the skin, and evacuates superfluities by the strong movement of the lungs. Since, therefore, it contributes to distribution, care ought to be taken that neither the stomach nor bowels be loaded with crude and indigestible food or liquids; for there is a danger lest they should be carried to all parts of the body before they are properly digested. It is clear then that exercise ought to be taken before eating. The colour of the urine will point out the proper time for exercise. When it is watery, it indicates that the chyme absorbed from the stomach is still undigested. When it is of a deep yellow colour, and bilious, it shows that digestion had been long ago accomplished. When it is moderately pale, it indicates that digestion has just taken place; and this is the proper time for exercise, after having evacuated whatever excrementitious matters are collected in the bladder and bowels.
Commentary. The remarks of our author on the effects of exercise are exceedingly pertinent and comprehensive. See, in like manner, Aëtius (iii, 2), and Oribasius (Med. Collect. vi, 11.) But Galen is the great authority on this subject, which he treats of very fully and philosophically, in the second book of his ‘Hygiene.’ He agrees entirely with Hippocrates, that the proper time for exercise is before a meal, because, the excrementitious superfluities being thereby evacuated, the body is in a fit condition for receiving a new supply. He explains, however, afterwards, that it is after the digestion and distribution of a preceding meal have been accomplished that exercise will be most proper.
According to Haly Abbas, exercise is useful for three purposes: 1. For rousing the innate or natural heat, whereby the processes of digestion and distribution are accelerated. 2. For opening the pores of the body, and evacuating its superfluities. 3. For strengthening and rousing the animal actions, by the friction it occasions. (Theor. v, 2.) Avicenna gives nearly the same statement of the good effects of exercise. Haly Abbas forbids exercise immediately after dinner. He adds, that exercise taken immediately after a meal makes the food descend to the intestines, where it is absorbed by the veins before it is properly concocted, and thereby the liver becomes loaded with crudities. (Pract. i, 3.)