Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-02-18
COMFORT FOR THE AGING
The Average Human Being Lives Longer
Than he Used to Do
Arch of Life Has Vow Reached Fifty
Medical Treatment to Keep
From Getting Old.

FROM the IonuuH tHfOnlCle.
| What is it to grow old? asked the poet of
| culture, and his answer was depressing
| He enumerated various losses and failures,
and summed it all up in complete mental
and moral degeneration and chill insensi-
bility to all beauty, truth, and goodness.
| What is it to grow old? ask two learned
/ doctors in today's Lancet, and their an
| swer in brief is. "arterio-sclerosis causing
| involution of the central neuron." We are
| not quite sure that this information is
| really much more cheering than the poets
answer to men for whom the discussion on
| old age pensions is beginning to have a
terribly personal air, Or to women who al
| ready discern the meaning of George Mere
| dith's phrase, "the tragedy of the looking
glass; But in reality both doctors agree
| IN having something really cheerful to say,
Tor once, though they approach the ques-
ton from rather different sides. DR.. Aims
| lie Hollis insists chiefly on the indisputable
facts, not only that life is longer than it
| used to be, but that old age comes later,
and youth or manhood have better run.
Dante put the middle of lifes arch at
thirty-fve; no doubt he had in his mind
the Psalmist's limit of threescore years and
ten. Yet till recently he was probably
| right in fixing the center. or he put'it even
TOO late. Montaigne speaks of himself at
thirty-five as though his life were practi-
cally ended, and there was nothing for him
| leisure, but still to decay Jacques would
probably have thought forty well, on to-
ward the sixth age of man. -
But DIR. Hollis tells us that the cenTsgof
lie has now shifted to fifty, and is appar-
emily likely to rise still further We have
seen, as he points out, an era of old men,
he instances Virchow, Verdi and the pope:
out TO those any one win readily add Glad
stone Newman Ranke Moltke, Bismarck
carlyle, and even Tennyson and Browning
Three of them were ninety; the great men
OF eighty have been so numerous they
hardly count. Mans life whole is ris-
ing, and he retains his capacity for work
much longer, though, unfortunately we
must limit this statement to the educated
classes "a reservation which the doctor
forgets Under the industrial pressure. as
we nave all been lamenting lately, the dis
abilities of old age begin to tell sooner than
ever among the artisans. But nevertheless
life is in general longer, and is likely to be
longer still. In animals a slow growth and
late maturity are followed by long life
! especially among wild things living in the
| open air. The domestic mouse it is true
| only takes three months to mature, and if
| ii escapes the harmful and unnecessary
cat, your mouse will live four and a half
| years, or an addition of sixteen times the
| length of its youth. AT that rate man. who
natures at twenty-five, ought to enjoy life
| for about four centurieS-a glorious exist
| ence, indeed, But for the present the doc
tors appear to think shall have to be
contented with an average of a century
| apiece; and certainly that will be a real
| advance
When DR.. Hollis attempts to prove that
! youth is encroaching upon age, because the
| date of marriage is steadily growing later
We cannot follow him, for the statistics are
probably due to the increase of rent the
| higher standard of living, or possibly even
| to prudence But he establishes his point
| that the ordinary tokens of old age are
generally due TO disease, especially to w
motto disease, and medicine and SANTA
ton gradually reduce the influence of such
| diseases, premature old age will disappear,
| as 1t Is disappearing, and even in really
old people the evidences of age will become
| tar less apparent, 1t is reasonable that
| any healthy and natural mode of life drives
| old age back. Nine de Stael recommended
| exercise, study and love as the best de
| lenses against it, and they are all good
| though, as the Lancet says. sometimes diff
| hcult. 1t may be true not that those
| whom the gods love die young, but in this
! sense We may also say that those who love
! the gods live to be old. 1t is significant
| that of all sorts and conditions of men the
! clergy live longest, whereas doctors and
! physicians, being unable to heal them
! selves, rank at the very bottom of the pro-
| LESSONS, and have no better chance of life
| than quarrymen.
Nothing. daunted by this peculiar fact,
| however, at this point DIR. julius Althaus
| takes up the tale with new method of
| treatment whereby he proposes to retard or
| disperse the usual disabilities of age. Pre-
| mature old age he regards as chiefly due to
! inheritance, especially from hystericai par
| entS. Its signs are melancholy annd hest
| tation, sleeplessness, forgetfuness distaste
| for exertion continual brooding on the
| black side of things and utter selfshuess
| The last Is perhaps also symptom of what
| an 1rfshman might call premature youth
| as well. But DIR. Althaus claims that in an
| experience of forty years he has found even
| the worst of these cases yield to some eX-
| tent to his treatment, and in most cases he
| obtained extraordinary results after a
| course of only one month six WEEKS. AS
! to the common and Inevitable old age of the
| aged. even its most tedious and dishearten-
| ing signs of failure may be mitigated and
| postponed.
| A week or two after the commencement
| of the treatment the old man takes fresh
| interest in the affairs of daily life he re-
| Sumes his work with some amount of yigor
| he has more erect attitude, he walks. and
| stands better, and he has quicker diges-
| ton and healthier sleep. His peevish and
| querulous temper is no longer a source of
| trouble to his friends In about 40 per cent
of cases treated by me the result was noted
| as very good in another 30 per cent as
| fair" and in the last 80 as insignificant"
| In no case was the treatment entirely use
| less, and the function which improved in
| every one of them was that of walking
| The method of the treatment is, briefly.
| the nourishment of the neuron by a con-
| slant galvanic current. DIR. Althaus ex-
| plains at some length the process of gal
| vanization of the different territories of the
brain, hut refers for more detailed informa-
| ton to his treatise "On Failure of Brain
| Power. The electrical treatment is not to
be undertaken by every youth who wishes
! to live in peace with grabbed age. The care
| and practice of an artist, says DIR. Althaus
| is required, But of the results he has no
| doubt whatever. And so, perhaps the lam
entatfons of poets and philosophers DE
| Senectute' will all become obsolete and We
| shall die at ninety in the full vigor of man.
| hood. On the other hand we must remem-
| Der the saying of the epigrammatist: 1.-THE
| tragedy OF Is that we oil hut
| that are young" That is q tragedy
| which the new treatment will only increase
| --< ~<
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