The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-10-12
Postponing
OF Old Hge


FROM the Pittsburg Times.
m nd all the days of Methuseah were
IAN nine hundred and sixty nine years:
ID\ and he died
I'M Thus speaks the Book of Genesis
in recording the generations of
Adam. 1t is a great book for old men.
Enoch, the father OF Methusclah, was
only a youngster when he was translated,
having left this earth at the comparative
ly early age of 365 years. Jared was 962
years of age, MahalaCel was S95. Adam
himself lived $50 years, according to the
chronicle, and his son. Seth, died at the
ripe age of 9l2 But it seems that age
did not bring wisdom in all cases, for 1t
was while this race of old men existed
that the flood came. Even Noah himself
does not seem to have been any better
than he ought to have been, judging from
the record of his debauch during the
time he was in the wine business.
1t would appear from what happened,
and from the statement that "the wicked
ness of man was great on the earth and
that every imagination of his heart was
only evil continually" that old age was
not blessing in that day, and that men
protited but little by the opportunity for
acquiring experience which a life extend
ing over many centuries afforded. When
Noah got drunk and cursed his son Ham
because he sought to prevent his father
from disgracing himself, he was over GOO
years of age and certainly ought to have
had enough experience to have known
better than TO have got into such a con-
dition. But whether old age is desirable
or not, we all want to live as long as we
can, and it appears to us that if we had
a longer lease of life we might accom-
plish far more than We do
Philosophers are always bewaiing the
shortness of life. They claim that Just
when man has begun his Investigations
of the phenomena around him his bodily
powers fail, he must lay down the task
and all of his accumulated experience is
lost to the world. Within the historical
period of the world, 100 years has been
considered great age. There have been
cases reported of men and women who
have attained the age of $50 and even 200
years and upward, but they are not well
authenticated. There are not a few VINO
contend also, that the stories of the old
men of the Book of Genesis are merely
ancient fables, but it is not impossible
that there may have been something in
the environment of our remote ancestors
when the earth was young, that permitted
the preservation of the human machine
through such long periods.
Old age is simply a wearing out of the
machine. The impairment continues until
power house of the system, will no longer
beat, the blood ceases to circulate and
life goes out. The modern authorities tell
us that it is all owing to the gradual ac-
emulation of earthly salts in the body
The bones become hardened and brittle,
the arteries become ossihed and gradually
lose their power of contraction and ex-
pansion. The other functions of the body
are thereby deranged. the repairing and
reproductive processes are imperfectly
carried on, the flesh and muscles become
fiabby. the skin Is discoored and wrinkled
and all the signs of age are present. 1t
| is a purely mechanical process.
The way to live long we are told. is to
avoid these earthly salts. They abound in
the cereals, and, therefore, bread, the
very staff of life. is cutting down our
years with every mOuthful that we eat.
Beef and pork and many more of the
meats, the same authorities tell us, help
to build up these CalCareous deposits in
our bones and tissue, while fruits, fish,
poultry, young mutton and veal contain
less than other articles of food. Even
the water we drink, unless it is distilled,
carries into our systems the fatal salts
which will in the end send us to the
grave,
Perhaps IL one We're to conflne himself
to an exclusive diet of fish. fruit, poultry,
| lamb and veal, and were TO drink nothing
| but distilled water. We might stretch out
| his years considerably; but, aside from
the impossiblity of everybody following
such a course of diet, we would even then
| be laying in n store of the fatal salts.
| Having discovered the cause of old age,
| having captured the germ, as It were,
| why should the inventive genius of the
| age not be equal TO the task of devisng
| a nourishng and universal food which
| should be free from this life-destroyng
| earthly matter; or, failing in that, can
\ not some way be found of eliminating II
| from the body when once 1t has fouad
| lodGment? IL does not look so hard by
| any means as some of the problems that
| man has already solved.