Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-08-13
SCIENCE OF GROWING OLD.
Some Sage Precepts as to Diet, Exer
else and Medicine.

| BRAIN woRKRRs ARE OFTEN MIsLEp As TO THE
PHYSICAL xxKRTIoN THEY REouIRE--FoIIY
or RxsrsTINa THE MARKS OF rHE YEARS
VARIETY DEMANDED BY TIE HUMAN STOMACH.
From Mscmillan's Magazine.
Half the secret of life, We are persuaded, IL
| to know when we are grown old, and it is the
| half most hardly learned. II is more hardly
learned, moreover, in the matter of exercise
than in the matter Of diet There is
no advice so commonly given to the ailing
man of middle age as the advice to
take more exercise, and there 10 perhaps
none which leads him into so many pit
falls. This is particularly the case with the
brain-workers. The man who labors his brain
must spare his body. He cannot burn the can
die at both ends, and the attempt to do so viii
almost inevitably result in his lighting ii in the
middle to boot; the waste Of tissue will be SO
great that he will be tempted to repair 1t by
the use of q too generous diet Most men who
use their brains much soon learn for them
selves that the sense of physical exaltation, the
glow OF exuberant health, which comes from a
body strung to its full powers by continuous
and severe exercise, is not favorable to study.
The exercise such men need is the exercise
that rests, not that which tires They need to
wash their brains with the fresh air Of heaven,
bring into gentle play the muscles that have
been lying idle while the head worked.
Nor is 1t only to this class Of laboring human
ity that the advice to take exercise needs reser-
vatons. The time of violent delights soon
passes, and the efforts to protraet it beyond its
natural span is as dangerous as it is ridiculous.
Some men, through nature or the accident of
fortune, will, OF course, be able to keep touch
OF 1t longer than others; but when once the
touch has been lost the struggle to retain it can
add but sorrow to the labor. OF this our doc
tor makes cardinal point; but, pertinent
his warning may be to the old, for whom, in
deed, he has primarily compounded his elixir
vite, IT is yet more pertinent to men of middle
age, and probably IL is more necessary II is
IN the latter period that most of the mischief is
done. The old are commonly resigned TO their
lot; but few men will consent without a strug-
gle to own that they are no longer young.
And specially is this friend of man to be
thanked for his warning against that most pes
ulential OF modern heresies, the bicycle or tri-
cycle, or whatsoever its accursed name may be.
Elderly men, he says should eschew this un.
natural mode Of progression. Most cordially
we nope shat the warning is superfuous. The
spectacle OF an old man, writhing in the I'M
galniy contortions necessary to the proper
management Of this "agonizing wheel" were,
indeed, one to make angels weep. We have our
selves no great passion for seeing even the
young take their exercise in this fashion They
had far better trust to their own legs il a horse
is beyond their means. No doubt they can
cover more ground that way, and to do the
most possible in the shortest possible space of
time appears to be one of the necessities of the
age. But We are well persuaded that the coun-
try walk that was found good enough for our
fathers will serve their sons turn better than
this insane careering over hill and dale The
former refreshed mind well as body; but
what OF all the pleasant sights and sounds of
our fair English landscape do these young Ii
tans enjoy as they go staggering on.
With deaf
Ears and labor diiuned eyes.