The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1886-05-29
How to Avoid Premature Old Age.

How to Avoid Premature Old Age.
The following good advice is given
by DR.. Benjamin Ward Richardson:
The rules for the prevention of senile
disease are all personal. Trey should
begin in youth. 1t should be a rule
among grown-up persons never to SUBJ
ject children to mental shocks and un-
necessary griefs. When, in the sur
rounding of the child life, some grave
calamity has occurred, it is best to make
the event as light as possible to the
child, and certainly to avoid thrilling
it with sights and details which stir it
to the utmost, and in the end only leave
upon the mind and heart incurable
wounds and expressions. Children
should never be taken to funerals, nor
to sights that cause sense of fear and
dread combined with great grief, nor to
sights which call forth pain and agony
in man or in the lower animals.
To avoid premature old age in mature
to remember: ---.--'------ -
Grief anticipates age. Dwelling on
the inevitable past, forming vain hy-
potheses as to what might have been if
this or that had or had not been, ac-
quiring a craze for recounting what has
occurred-these acts do more harm to
future health and effort than many things
connected with real calamity. Occupa-
ton and new pursuits are the best pre-
ventives for mental shock and bereave-
ment.
Hate anticipates age. Hate keeps
the heart always at full tension. 1t
gives rise to oppression of the brain and
senses. 1t confuses the whole man. 1t
robs the stomach of nervous power, and,
digestion being impaired, the failure of
life begins at once. Those, therefore,
who are born with this passion-and a
good many, fear, are-should give it
up.
Jealousy anticipates age. The facial
expression of jealousy is old age, in how
ever young a face it may be cast. Jeal-
ousy preys upon and kills the heart.
So, jealous men are not only unhappy,
but broken hearted, and live short lives.
l have never known a man of jealous
nature live anything like long life or
useful life. The prevention of jeal-
ousy is diversion of mind toward useful
and unselfish work.
Unchastity anticipates age. Every
thing that interferes with chastity favorS
vital deterioration, while the grosser
departures from chastity, leading to
specific and hereditary disease, are GER
tain causes Of organic degeneration and
premature old age. Thus chastity is
preventive of senile decay.
Intemperance anticipates age. The
more the social causes of mental and
physical organic diseases are investigat-
ed, the more closely the origin OF de-
generative organic changes leading to
premature deterioration and decay are
questioned, the more closely does it
come out that intemperance, often not
suspected by the person himself who is
implicated in it, SO subtle is its influence,
is at the root of the evil.
| When old age has really commenced,
its march toward final decay IS best de-
layed by attention to those rules of con-
servation by which life is sustained with
the least friction and the least waste.
The prime rules for this purpose are:
To subsist on light but nutritious diet,
with milk as the standard food, but va
ried according to season.
To take food, in moderate quantity,
four times in the day, including light
meal before going to bed.
To clothe warmly but lightly, SO as
that the body may, in all seasons, main
tain its equal temperature.
To keep the body in fair exercise, and
the mind active and cheerful.
To maintain an interest in what is
going on in the world, and to take part
in reasonable labors and pleasures, as
though old age were not present.
To take plenty of sleep during sleep
ing hours. To spend nine hours in bed
at the least, and to take care during
cold weather that the temperature of the
bedroom is maintained at 60 Fab.
10 avoid passion, excitement. luxury.