TIME TO THROW IN THE TOWEL?

England must take the credit—or blame—for the reinvention of boxing. The sport was a popular part of the Roman games but had vanished by the 5th century. It returned some 1200 years later, when bare-fist prizefights began to be held in and around London. With help from the Marquess of Queensberry, boxing spread around the world, making money for a considerable number of boxing promoters and a smaller number of boxers. It is appropriate, then, that the British Medical Association should be actively involved in examining the sport. In its latest report, The Boxing Debate, which was issued last week, it repeats its call for a ban on boxing and asks for an independent inquiry into its safety. The briefest reading of the report should persuade even boxing's proponents of the need for an inquiry. In its appendix the report prints abstracts of recent research on what happens to boxers after they have been battered in the ring. For professional boxers, several studies make unpleasant reading. One using computerised tomography found 87 per cent of boxers, in a sample of 18, showed evidence of brain damage. Another records that 15 out of 19 young boxers register as impaired on a battery of neuropsychological tests. Particularly disturbing are three studies which show that changes found in the brains of ex-boxers are immunochemically similar to those seen in Alzheimer's disease. That raises the possibility that even boxers who retire from the ring healthy may pay the price in middle age with early onset of Alzheimer's disease.