The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1888-03-22
NO ONE NEED DIE.
DIR. Hammond's Plan for Living Forever
From the Washington Post.

and also from Their inability or lndlS-
position to obey those laws with which
they are acquainted. We are told in
the first chapter Of Genesis that before
Adam ate forbidden fruit the life of man
was to be eternal. But with the acqui-
sition of the knowlenge of good and
evil death became his portion. 1t
seems to me that it would be more in
accordance with the actual state of af-
fairs at the present time to believe that
death came through the loss Of knowl-
edge rather than from his obtaining it,
for now he loses his life not through an
excess of knowledge, but through an
excess Of ignorance.
l do not see that there is any physi-
illogical reason why even at the present
day man should die. From a knowl-
edge Of the causes of disease greater
than chat possessed fifty years ago, and
from the advance Of medical science
leading to better methods of treating
the deviations from the normal stand
ard of health to which we are subject,
the life of generation has within the
period mentioned been heightened five
or six years. That is, the average man
instead of living thirty years, as he did
fifty years ago, now lives nearly thirty
six years. Looking at the question
from this standpoint only, it will be
seen that it is merely question Of time
when his life will be extended to thous-
ands of years, and that with an eternity
of time his life also will be eternal.
Let us take one aspect of the subject
and we shall not, I think, fail to per-
ceive that when we thoroughly under
stand it and are willing to live in ac-
cordance with its requirements, death,
unless by accident, will cease to exist.
We know that this life is continued
through the death of the various atoms
of the several tissues that enter into the
composition of his body. His organs
are kept in action by force and this
force results as does all other force from
the matamorphosis Of matter. Thus to
obtain heat we burn wood or coal, and
ashes and gases are evolved in this pro-
cess; to generate electricity we convert
zinc or some other metal into a salt
through the action of an acid and elec-
tricity is set free. In the body, the
brain, the heart, the liver, the muscles
all act through the destruction or rath-
er alteration of the substance of which
they are composed. With every thought
that emanates from the brain, with
every emotion which it feels, with ev-
cry act of the will which it originates,
with every perception which it expe-
riences, certain portion of the central
tissue is broken down into simpler sub
stance and through various channels is
excreted from the body. With every
pulsation that the heart makes some
part of the organ, though small it may
be in amount, is destroyed, and is cast
out Of the system to make room for new
substance. With every contraction of
muscle, no matter how small, from
the effort required to WELD the heaviest
kind of a sledge hammer to that neces-
sary to lift pin or crook a finger or
wink an eyelid, muscular tissue dies
and being no longer fitted for the pur-
pose for which it was formed, is taken
up by the veins and like that coming
from the brain and heart and the lungs
and the stomach and all the other Or
gans which serve the purposes of the
body, is gotten rid Of through the kid
neys and the skin and the respiration
to be reformed outside of the system
into other substances which in their
turn make the food by which the body
is again nourished.
The food that man takes into his
stomach ought to be of such quantity
and quality as would axactly repair the
losses which, through the action of the
several organs, his body is to undergo.
If it is excessive III either Of these di-
rections, or if it is deficient, disease of
some kind will certainly be the result.
If he knew enough to be able to adjust
his daily food to the expected daily re-
quirements of his system disease could
never ensue through the exhaustion of
any one of his vital organs. A large
majority of the morbid affections to
which he is subject are due to lack of
this knowledge.
Suppose, for instance, that man on
rising in the morning should say to
himself, 'To-day l have to read ten
pages Of 'Blackstone's Commentaries
twenty pages of Don Quixote,' to walk
three miles and a half, to pay a visit of
half an hours duration to my grand
mother and to take my sweetheart to
the theatre where I shall spend two
hours: to do this I require taking out
his pencil and memorandum book as
he spcaks) so much carbon, so much
nitrogen giving, of course, the exact
weight of these several elementary sub
stances.) can get those precise guam
titles from eight ounces of bread, four
ounces of eggs, eight ounces Of beef, six
ounces of potatoes, four ounces Of fish,
pint Of beef soup, eight ounces of Wa
ter and eight ounces of strong coffee to
make them go little farther than they
would otherwise. In case I have an
extraordinary demand made upon me
for mental Or physical eNertion l. shall
have to add to these substances others
which will compensate for the increas-
ed loss"