Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1884-05-15
HOW TO ATTAIN OLD AGE.

The Psalmist David allowed seventy years
as the natural duration of life, Pythagoras
placed the limit at eighty, London's hygi-
enic philosopher, DR.. Richardson, gives us
ten more, while Flourens believed that men
ought to live one hundred years.
There is no doubt that the physiological
limit of human life has been slightly in
dred years later it may be found that old
age comes on still more slowly and gently.
For, with the increased uncertainty as to
future life, human energies are directing
! themselves with greater earnestness toward
solving the problems of more healthful
and longer terrestrial existence.
The physiological chemist tells us that
after the age of forty or forty-fve, dissimi-
lation gradually begins to exceed asslmlla-
tion, and the structures of the body slowly
waste. Muscle and nerve, which are the
manic coefficient of both striped and un-
striped muscle decrease after forty; the
limbs become less supple, and the hollow
viscera have feeble expulsive force; the
nervous system is less sensitive and plastic;
impulses travel between center and periphe-
ry with more difficulty. The individual
loses spontaneity, and becomes more auto
matte, more creature of determined habits.
The lower tissues also undergo very mark
ed and characteristic changes. The fibrln-
factors of the blood increase in amount, the
bones become dried, the cartilages ossify, and
the arteries especially become the seat OF
fatty degeneration and calcareous deposits.
DIR. Richardson announces that "his eX-
periments show" that the collodial matter
! 1protoplasm y of the body in old age con-
tains less water, and that its particles are
consequently more cohesive. 1t is true at
any rate, that the total amount of water in
the body is less.
The essential fact as regards senile chang
es is that the metabolic function Is weaken
ed. Consequently the food, instead of being
built up into good tissue, is oxidized into
less complex substances. The protoplasm,
the circulatory apparatus becomes weaker,
the blood, stagnates, carbonic acid precipi-
tates, and earthly salts, which it kept in
solution, are deposited.
Now, certain recent philosophers have
thought that, by preventing these fatty and
calcerous changes old age could be delayed;
A Swiss physician, few years ago, argued
that lemons 1. e., citric acid, would accom-
onade. More recently, a writer in Kno,ot-
edge, Mr.. w. 0. Dawson, has presented a
new regimen sa,aitatis, which he claims is
the most rational and certain means Of re-
tarding old age. 1t consists in avoiding all
food rich in earthly salts, and in taking,
daily, two or three tumblerfuls of distilled
water with ten or fifteen drops Of dilute
phosphoric acid in each glassful. The food
freest of earthly salts is: fruits, fish and
poultry, young mutton and veal.
We can testify with Mr.. Dawson that this
kind of diet is harmless, but we are pro-
foundly skeptical as to its efficiency.
Old age is part Of the life history Of organ
ism. There is that in the child at birth
which determines very nearly when old
age shall appear Senility is a failure OF
nutrition. We can only delay its appear
ance by living life which puts no undue
strain on the organism, and by furnishing
| it with the easiest means of working. We
cannot expect to accomplish this end by sim
ply cutting off deleterious supplies. If one
would live long, let him especially take care
of his "master tissues"--the muscle and the
nerve-when young. This means rational
exerciseof body and we'll balanced cultiva-
tion of mind. Brain workers live long, brain
and muscle workers longer still. No one has
yet given better advice for the retarding of
old age than did Christopher Hufeland,
century ago. Let those who wish old age
study him, and put no trust in distilled
| ter.-NeClicdL Record