Sir,

I am delighted that Colonel Wand-Tetley (October 19, p. 536) has been constrained to answer my letter on physical training in the Army so that a debate on the whole subject of physical culture and training may now take place in its proper place ­ a medical journal. But before discussing this may I suggest that all the improvement in the recruit's physique and appearance is not due entirely to his physical training, but that much of it is due to his ordered life and its discipline and to his excellent food and provision for all his needs, while all that is required of him during his training is to learn his job and do his duty. If everyone in the country lived under the same conditions, what a difference it would make to the personal appearance and internal happiness of thousands!

The analogy between the head and the hand in their relationships to their respective joints, as it affects their essential functions, is very close. By the essential functions of the hand I mean the innumerable uses to which the intrinsic muscles of the hand can be put, apart from the use of the hand as a fist or the supporting and moving functions of the arm and forearm. By the essential motor functions of the head ­ the cephalic globe ­ I mean the delicate movements of the head at the atlanto-occipital joint, not at any intervertebral joint, carried out by the intrinsic muscles of the head ­ the suboccipital muscles called by Dr. Cave "the hand-maids of the cephalic globe." These movements are apart from the supporting and moving functions of the large muscles in the neck.

When the head is extended on the spine it is not in its normal anatomical relationship to the atlas at the atlanto-occipital joint. It is pointing backwards and inclining downwards, even in the position of attention of the Army physical instructor as shown in the Manual of 1931. It should be directed forwards and upwards, and because this is not so the action of the intrinsic muscle of the head are interfered with, and the functioning of the head as primary control is consequently altered, just in the same way as the functioning of the intrinsic muscles of the hand are interfered with when the hand is extended on the forearm.

The position of head has been shown by numerous physiological experiments on mutilated and decerebrate animals to determine the relative position of the different parts of the body to each other and to itself, but no physiologist has attempted to who how the position of the head relative to the spine in a normal intact man alters the relationships of the different parts of the body to each other and to itself. If it is true in the experimental animal it must be true in the intact animal (even man), as witness the effect of putting a bearing-rein on a horse. What happens then if the muscles of the neck are contracted and the head drawn back ­ as with the bearing-rein in a horse? The spine is shortened, the shoulders are drawn back, alignment of ribs altered, the shape of the chest changed and made pouter-shaped, and the breathing space restricted; the back is hollowed and the supporting action of the abdominal muscles disappears as the anti-gravity function of the muscles is negatived throughout the whole muscular system.

I wish to point out that this letter is meant to provide a basis for a real constructive system of physical culture and physical training and not simply a destructive criticism.

Since writing the above I have been in communication with Colonel Wand-Tetley and he informs me that since July the Army physical training methods are being based on the principles described above.

These principles have been set out by F. Matthias Alexander in his books, Man's Supreme Inheritance and Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, while the experiments on himself, on which the principles and technique are based, have been described in his book The Use of the Self. This was done without any anatomical or physiological knowledge ­ the attempt to supply which has been made by myself.

A. Murdoch
Bexhill-on-Sea, Oct. 28.