We rushed behind the screen, but there was nothing there except the ventriloquist, his table, his chair, and his ruler." Athletic Feats .-- The ancients called athletes those who were noted for their extraordinary agility, force, and endurance.

The history of athletics is not foreign to that of medicine, but, on the contrary, the two are in many ways intimately blended.

The instances of feats of agility and endurance are in every sense of the word examples of physiologic and functional anomalies, and have in all times excited the interest and investigation of capable physicians.
The Greeks were famous for their love of athletic pastimes; and classical study serves powerfully to strengthen the belief that no institution exercised greater influence than the public contests of Greece in molding national character and producing that admirable type of personal and intellectual beauty that we see reflected in her art and literature.

These contests were held at four national festivals, the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmean games.

On these occasions every one stopped labor, truce was declared between the States, and the whole country paid tribute to the contestants for the highly-prized laurels of these games.