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But, it will be alleged, there are dangers connected with swimming. And so there are dangers connected with walking, riding, driving, railways, steamboats; but these dangers do not deter us from making use of these means of locomotion. But let us see what these dangers are. In learning to swim you may get out of your depth and be drowned:—Then learn to swim in shallow water. The cold water may give you a chill:—Not much fear of that unless you are very imprudent, but to avoid that insignificant risk you can learn to swim in tepid water. There are plenty of such baths in London and most large towns. There is the risk of cramp overtaking the most practised swimmer and sinking him suddenly to the bottom:—Swimmers do sometimes sink suddenly in deep water and so get drowned, but I doubt if they are often good swimmers, and I doubt if it is cramp that sends them to the bottom. The Lancet lately alluded to this subject, and suggested that it might be a sort of spasm of the respiratory muscles, whereby the air was suddenly expelled from the lungs, and the specific levity of the body being thus lost, the swimmer sank like a stone. That may be partly true, but I am convinced it is not the whole truth, nor does it explain how the catastrophe is caused. I believe the so-called cramp to be a spasm of the heart and respiratory organs, and that it is produced in this way. The swimmer may be accustomed to swimming, but he has never thoroughly mastered the indispensable first step in swimming, of committing the support of his body entirely to the water. He exhausts himself in efforts to elevate his head and shoulders above the water. As he gets into deep water these efforts, which are of the nature of nervousness, are increased; the cold of the water (to which perhaps he is unused from having hitherto practised swimming chiefly in tepid water) sends the blood in upon the heart, he feels choking, throws up his arms with a loud cry, and goes to the bottom at once. The cause of this often fatal seizure I believe to be a compound of nervous exhaustion, anxiety, and cold. It is extraordinary the difference that prevails in regard to the power of resisting cold. I have seen a man shivering and blue after five minutes in one of the tepid swimming baths, while others can remain an hour or longer in the sea and come out warm and comfortable.[Footnote 2] A dip in cold water, even a cold sponging bath, will cause some men’s extremities to die away and remain apparently devoid of circulation for hours. We can then easily imagine that the cold of the sea, or of a lake or river, may in an individual so sensitive to its effects cause such an accumulation of the blood about the heart and lungs as to produce all the phenomena observed in drowning by so-called cramp. That a certain degree of fear or anxiety is one of the causal elements is, I think, sufficiently proved by the fact, that this so-called cramp never occurs in shallow water. That it is not cramp of the voluntary muscles is, I think, evident from the fact that many people do get cramp in their legs when swimming, and this, though painful, is not dangerous, for we can always throw ourselves on our back or swim in spite of the pain. I have actually plunged into deep water with a slight attack of cramp in one of my legs, but found no difficulty in keeping myself afloat until the cramp subsided. Although, until its nature is precisely understood, there will always remain some risk of accident from so-called cramp, still I believe the risk would be reduced to insignificance if those who chill rapidly, whom swimming fatigues, or who become nervous in deep water, would refrain from venturing beyond their depth until they have conquered these failings, which habit will soon enable them to do.