The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7272 p594
25 October 2003

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Against the spirit of sport [more]
Fast, not feast [more]
Mathematical genius [more]

Against the spirit of sport

One of the principles that govern legitimate sporting events is ensuring fair play. Yet today the most prominent efforts seem to be directed towards winning a competition at any cost, the means being subordinated to the end. There can be no doubt that this situation has arisen because of the enormous monetary rewards attending supremacy in an atmosphere of fierce competition. Competitors appear to be prepared to go to any length to advance their ambition, including recourse to drugs supposed or known to enhance physical prowess.

In the 4 October issue of New Scientist, Dr Robert Dawson of Durham University has commented on attempts now being made by the World Anti-Doping Agency in Montreal to develop agreed international rules governing the detestable habit of doping in competitive sporting events. He points out that to standardise dope testing is no easy task, since the rules need to cover tests made outside the narrow limits of competition, exemptions necessary for legitimate medications, standards to be observed in laboratories, and other aspects. And not least, any agreed rules will have to be observed by sports organisations and governments. One globally recognised code must be better than an array of different standards. Dr Dawson believes that efforts made in Montreal are likely to be wasted in the long run because any distinctions set out in a new code will depend on moral arguments rather than scientifically credible ones.

The potential list of banned substances in the code includes some 50 stimulants, 40 anabolic steroids, 20 beta-blockers, 14 diuretics and eight narcotics. Although some of these, such as the steroids, are known performance enhancers, many are included because of suspicion that they may confer unfair athletic advantages, not confirmed by scientific studies. Some, such as the narcotics, would have the opposite effect. On the other hand, some recognised performance enhancers such as creatine monohydrate, are not listed. Listing requires two of three criteria to be met: taking it may be harmful, it definitely enhances physical performance, or it may be “against the spirit of sport”, whatever that means. Such selection means that tobacco is not included because it meets only the first criterion. Unfortunately, “the spirit of sport” is a moral concept and a vague one, and cannot be controlled by any scientific definition. However, supplements of erythropoietin are banned, while sleeping in a decompression chamber in order to increase body erythropoietin by that means is considered fair. And many possibly objectionable substances are not at present capable of being screened.

Dr Dawson believes that for most competitors and ambitious youngsters so-called performance enhancers may not work and may even prove harmful. It is important to make this message clear. And the stupid win-at-all-costs mentality that leads them to take drugs of any kind must be fought tooth and nail.

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Fast, not feast

According to a proverb dating from 1732, “He that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.” Of course, feasting and fasting are the two extremes of a mode of living. In the present day we are becoming more and more aware of the health hazards involved in faulty eating, let alone feasting. A high proportion of dwellers in rich countries are recognised to be seriously overweight. But we live in a greedy age where children are encouraged by the prevalence of fast and rich foods to eat more than is good for them, while also neglecting the partial safeguard offered by physical exercise. And when we wish to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary of any kind, the first thing we think of is a feast, which means eating and drinking a great deal more than our usual ration.

It never occurs to anyone today that an alternative to celebration through feasting is celebration through fasting. Yet for many centuries the fast has been recognised as celebratory and a valuable occasional discipline. Fasting is defined as temporary abstinence from food for ritual, ascetic or medicinal purposes, so that we are quite justified in adopting it as a brake on our rush towards obesity.

In the ancient Greek and Roman cultures feasting was more central than fasting, but in the Jewish, Islamic and Christian cultures fasting came into its own as a means of celebration or as a ceremony of penance for conscious shortcomings. Special occasions included daily fasting and prayer throughout the Islamic month of Ramadan, the 24-hour fast of the Jewish Day of Atonement and Christianity’s 40 days of fasting during Lent. Fasting also became obligatory at certain times in oriental religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and in some religions went hand in hand with sexual abstinence.

Incidentally, the saliva of a fasting person was once regarded as a remedy for all manner of sores and inflammation caused by insect pests, and it was poison to snakes. So is it not a possible healthy influence to think of fasting now and then to overcome our prevalent craze for eating and drinking to excess, celebrating special occasions not by indulgence but by abstinence?

Yet when you look at the space given over today in newspapers and magazines to food and cooking there is little hope for any therapy that fasting might be healthier than feasting. And think of the reaction of the supermarket proprietors!

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Mathematical genius

The 300th anniversary of the death of the polymath John Wallis in Oxford falls on October 28. He was born in Ashford, Kent on 23 November 1616, the son of a local minister of religion. He started his education in Ashford but, after the outbreak of plague there, was moved in 1625 to a private school near Tenterden and again in 1630 to one in Felsted, Essex where he showed an aptitude for Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, logic and music. Young Wallis chose, however, to study arithmetic as a particular hobby. He entered Emanuel College, Cambridge, in 1632, where he studied ethics, physics, metaphysics, anatomy and medicine. He also took holy orders in Cambridge.

These were only part of his studies, however. He took an interest in editing some of the Greek mathematical texts, and became expert at deciphering coded messages. During the Civil War this took on a serious aspect, and Wallis’s fame as a cryptologist grew when he deciphered a letter describing the capture of Chichester in 1642. About that time he moved to London where he became an associate of Robert Boyle. He was one of those who in 1648 signed a petition protesting against the execution of Charles I. In 1649 Wallis was appointed Savilian professor of geometry in Oxford, and in 1660 became a Royal Chaplain. In 1663 he numbered among the founders of the Royal Society.

Meanwhile, he was not idle in other fields of study. He wrote a grammar of the English language in 1652 and a treatise on algebra in 1685, and devised experiments in a deaf and dumb language. He was a keen collector of mathematical works. By the time he died in 1703, aged 86, John Wallis had achieved proficiency in an amazing number of intellectual pursuits.

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