Cambridge Library Collection University Oars

University Oars is a compilation of letters of response to the author from the participants of the Oxford and Cambridge boat races. John Edward Morgan, himself a former university oarsman and physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, spent four years sending inquiries and compiling responses in his effort to shed some light on an important perceived physiological problem which he sought to investigate for the welfare of the rising generation. Published in 1873, his responses numbered 251 out of 255 letters sent to university oarsmen, detailing the athletes' current physical and mental condition. Morgan's findings dispel the widely held notion of the time that the famous test of strength and endurance had adverse latent physiological and psychological effects on its stalwart participants.