Health and Athletics

To the Editor: —Physicians working in colleges have an opportunity to obtain facts concerning the influence of athletics on the health of young men. The accompanying table gives the result of a short analysis made after the routine examination of 745 new students at the Pennsylvania State College health service last fall. The data were obtained partly from a careful past history included at the examination. The conditions selected for comparison are in our experience the most frequent and representative of health and disease in young men. In the table, the first column of figures gives general percentages for the entire 745 students who gave a history of previous competitive athletics averaging 2.8 months during each of 1.8 years. The second column gives the same for 100 students selected for maximum athletic experience. Their average is 8.1 months for each of five years.