Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-11-30
MEMORY A TEST OF AGE.
Why Scenes and Incidents of Childhood Be.
come Vivid in the Closing Years.

why oSOHcs anu AhcIucnCB Oh CnIIOnOOO BE
come Vivid in the Closing Years.
Memory is often a good test of age.
When person begins to find the recol-
lection of current and recent work fail
ing, and when he finds the recollection
of events of the early part of his life
acutely perceptible, and by a kind of
spontaneity recurrent, the evidence is
certain that the mind of that person is
aging. The fact is still further en-
phasized if, with the remembrance of
past days, there is a sympathetic re-
spouse calling forth a sentimental feel
ing either of pleasure or of pain. There
probably is physiological reason for
centers of the brain are filed with i'm
pressions and images which have be-
come fixed, and for time quiescent.
They sleep. While they sleep other
parts of the brain are charged with
new impressions, 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
is. But time goes on, and under the
active life the brain centers receiving
the later impressions tire, wear out,
and for working purposes suspend func-
ton 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 impress
sions-remain intact, and no long
err oppressed and obscured by that
which has accumulated upon them,
begin once more to live and
display their activities. So aged
people who forget the names of those
who are staring them in the face, who
forget the details of the last ride, or
walk, or work, and who forget engage
ments letters and hours of meals, re-
mem Der with the freshness of youth
the friends of their youth; the places,
habits, conversations, events that have
long since passed, and have been so
long in oblivion.
The study of memory in relation to
age is full of practical as we'll as phil
osophical Importance. 1t bears on the
value of evidence of observed facts and
phenomena at different stages of life.
There are thousands of persons who
could give no evidence worthy of
credence respecting sayings and events
of to-day, who could still give the most
accurate and reliable evidence about
sayings and events of fifty years ago;
and, if sympathies change with memo
ries. there is an explanation, clear
enough, why with age likes and dis
likes should undergo the astonishing
notifications we so often witness. l
was called once to see a dying man
who was advanced in life. He was
muttering something strangely.
"What is it he says?" I asked. II do
not know, sir,'' replied the nurse, "but
it's all Monday, and see how curiously
he moves his hands" I listened at
tentively, and soon caught the words,
repeated many times: ooh Jesu, Agnus
Del qui TOLLS peccata mundi. Miserere
nobis." I observed thereupon to my
medical brother, whom 1 had been
called to meet in consultation, ''he, -
the patient, lis saying part of litany.
He is Roman Catholic" Impossible!
have known him for thirty years, and
he has been man of the freest
thought, good in every way, but allied
to no creed whatever, and opposed to
the Roman Catholic faith "That may
be, but in his early life, I warrant you,
he was brought. up in that faith and
conjectures proved correct In the first
five years of life he was trained in the
Catholic ceremonial, since which age
he had come under Influences that had
changed the whole tenor of his
thoughts
The point wish to make in concluding
this opusculum is, in the strictest sense,
practical and medical Whenever a
4.
fairly into them, reports that current
memory is fading and past memory is
reviving, and when he reports also that
his sympathies are running with his
memories, his current sympathies de-
Ginning, his old ones re-awakening. he
is in an indifferent condition. He re-
quires immediate mental rest of those
faculties that are becoming impaired,
and is in want of pursuits and scenes
that will bring new faculties into play.
Fortunately we never use up a 1.-THE of
our brain surface. There is always
ample unchanged surface to work upon
even late in life. and if the brain be
not physically diseased, new memories
may be called forth which open up new
activities and cover in the old. Will
liam Harvey, in his latter days took tc
mathematics, and for the first time fol
lowed them with ease, much to his
quiet. I knew an aged man who took
under the same circumstances to music
and became quite fair violinist; from
all of which comes lesson
| In second childishness child life revive,
Learn something new each day, and so re
live
DIR. B. w. Richardson, in Asclepiad
jacques Auditorium,