The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-11-26
MEMORY A TEST OF AGE.
and Incidents of Childhood Vivid
in the Closing Years.

Genes and Incidents of Childhood Vivid
in the Closing Years.
Memory is often a good test of age,
writes DR.. w. b. Richardson in Asclipiad.
When a person begins to find the recollec-
tions of current and recent work failing,
and when he finds the recollections of
events of the early part Of his life acutely
perceptible, and by q kind of s%pontaneity
reourrent, the evidence is certain that the
mind of that person is aging. The fact is
still further emphasized if. with the remem-
pathetic response calling forth n senti-
mental feeling either of pleasure or of pain.
There probably is a physiological reason
for these phenomena. In early life certain
centers Of the brain are filled with impress
sions and images which have become fixed,
and for 9 time quiescent. They sleep.
While they sleep other parts Of the brain
which remain in activity, provoking
the physical body into new and
continued actions, and constituting the
life of the individual as it is seen at work,
nay, as it really ia. But time goes on, mi
under the active life tho brain centers re-
and for working purposes suspend function
and die. Their suspension is not. however,
the suspension of the whole of the cerebral
organism. The parts first impressed and
imprinted--the parts that carry the latent
lmpressions-remain intact, and, no longer
oppressed and obscured by that which has
accumulated upon them, begin once more
to live and display their activities. So aged
people who forget tht names of those who
are staring them in the face, who forget
tho details Of the last ride, or walk, or
work, and who forget engagements, letters
and hours of meals, remember with the
freshness of youth the friends of their
youth; the places, habits, Conversations,
events that have long since passed mi have
been so long in oblivion.
The study Of memory in relation to age is
full Of practical rs we'll as philosophical
Importance. 1t bears oil the value of evil
dence of observed facts and phenomena at
of persons who could give no evidence
worthy of credencs respecting sayings m
of to-day. who could still give the
most accurat and reliable evidence about
and events of fifty years ago; and,
if sympathies change with memories, there
age likes and dislikes should undergo the
astonishing notifications we SO often wit
ness. l was called once to see n dying man
who was advanced in life. He was NUT
tering something strangely. "What is it
he saVs?' I asked. II do not know, sir"
the nurse. but it's all Monday
and see how %curiously he moves his
/ listened attentiveiy, and soon
caught the words, repeated many times:
''Oh, Jesu,. Agnus Del, qui TOLLS peccata
Miserere nobis." observed
thereupon tony medical brother. whom I
had been called to meet in consultation,
'He," .aae patient us saying part of a
litauv. He is a Roman Catholic" Tim
l have known him for thirty
years, and he has been u man of the freest
thought. hood in every way, but allied to
no creed whatever, and opposed to the Ro.
man Catholic faith.'' .That may be, but
in his early life, l warrant you, he was
up in that faith and learned its |
services. On inquiry my conjectures
life he WAS trained in the Catholic cere-
since which age lie had come vnder
influences that had changed the whole tenor
Of his thoughts.
The point l wish to make in concluding
Ibis opusculum is. in the s~trictest sense,
and medical. Whenever n On.
lent who has passed, the tifties. or is II fairly
INTO them, reports that current memory ia
aiding and past memory is reviving. and
when he repo Is also that his sympathies
sre running with his memories. his current
'ympathies declining. his old mes re-
Weakening, he in in MI Indifferent condi-
ion. He requires immediate mental Test
II those faculties that are becoming
impaired, and is in want of pur-
suits md scenes that will bring
lew faculties into play. Fortunately,
We never use up a 1.-THE of our brain
surface. There is always ample unchanged
to work on even late in life, and il
may BIO called forth which open
10 new activities and cover in the old.
Harvey, in his latter days, took to
mathematics, and for the itst time fol-