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THE PHYSIOLOGY OF YOGAM
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rapid and deep breathing to make up for lost time.
Taking into consideration all these circumstances, I am of opinion, that it is possible for a man, who has for years trained himself to it, as an acrobat has trained his limbs to all sorts of unnatural actions, to develop sufficient cutaneous respiration to supply the needs of the body under suitable conditions for considerable periods of time. It is, I believe necessary to begin with great care and to increase the periods very gradually, as I have heard of young enthusiasts who got congestion of the lungs and hemorrhage from them, and other dangerous forms of disease, by commencing. the process immoderately or pursuing faulty methods.
Stories are told of Yogis who remained in a state of trance for months. Such a thing is not unthinkable; for we have an analogy in the hybernation of certain of the vertebrata, and exhumations have revealed the fact that in temperate countries, where burial is not performed for four or five days after death, people have been buried alive, for they have assumed contortionate attitudes in their tombs. How soon after burial they woke up and struggled for breath and liberty, we have no means of ascertaining.
The question, why the Yogi should prefer to breathe by the skin to using the apparatus which Nature has specialized for that purpose, takes us for the most part outside the pale of physiology, and as this paper is only intended to deal with the physical aspects of Yogam, I shall not endeavour to answer it. From
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