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THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

The Exercises called " My System ” were originally selected and composed for the purpose of keepmg my comrades of the Copenhagen Rowing Club and myself fit during the " off" season, as regular rowing practice is not possible during winter in Denmark.

Up to this time, the manuals of physical culture in vogue were published with the main object of seiling some apparatus (spring dumb-bclls, chest-expanders, etc.). On the title pagc were usualiy displayed as " authors ” the namcs of famous stage performers, whose biceps or triceps were thcir chief credentials.

Seeing the splendid results in generał health and fitness of my exer-cises without apparatus, my friends urged me to let them be published. The first Danish edition appeared in 1904, and had an immediate success ; several reprints had to be issued, even in the first few months, and the famę of the little book rapidly spread to other countries.

The subsetjuent demand for the book has been so great that it has been translated into 24 languages, the sales numbering millions of copies.

One of the main causes of this phenomenal success has been the generał and generous support from members of the Medical Profession all over the world. In some countries, Italy, Portugal and Spam, the book and its companion volumes have even been translated by Doctors of Medicine, who asked me for permission to introduce “ My System " amongst their countrymen. These doctors (respectively, Dr. Alessandro Clerici, Dr. Ardisson Ferreira, and Dr. Alberto Conradi) put their fuli names on the title pages and wrote long eulogistic prefaces.

It was the scientific merits of “ My System,” its recognition of the fundamental importance of the establishment of generał health in all the vital, organie functions, rather than in the development of merely muscuiar strength, which commanded the immediate approval of the Medical Profession.

The endorsement of the ” System ” by the leading medical men of Europę, the constant comments and favourable analytic reviews in the Continental medical Press, the publicity given to it at several Medical Congrcsses, where it formed the subject of addresses and debates, and last but not least, the references to it in numerous medical works published by well-known Continental savants, speedily commended it to British physicians, who were only too ready to investigate a physical culture system so free from the taint of commercialism, and which recognised as essential the importance of medical advice in carrying out the instructions.

From 1905 to 1912 I spent my time mainly in travelling in all the countries of Europę, giving lectures and demonstrations ; but in 1912 I gave way to the persuasions of English friends and settled in London, where " The Muller Institute ” was established at 45 Dover Street.

The aim of my first editions was first of all to show how the fairly healthy, averagc person could keep fit, fortify health and stamina and inerease physical and mental efficiency. But as so many doctors recom-mendcd the book to chronic sufferers and placcd it in the hands of their