Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-03-25
LIVING LONG.
An English 0ctogenarian Gives
His Secret.
Most Bodily Ills Are Due to Eating
Too Much.
Masticate Well and Drink Only at End
of Meals.

hearty at oZ, gives us the lessons Ol HlS
longevity, says the London Chronicle.
If it We're the habit of mankind to
profit by sound advice, most of US
would carry this volume in our
mediate upon it as our
breviary, and find very
little use for doctors. Luckily for the
medical profession, Sir Henry Thomp-
sons example demands a remuneration
almost as difficult for men in general
as monastic vows. Thirty years ago,
at the age of So, he gave up alcohol.
For the sake of experiment, five or six
years back he tried the effect of a
claret glass of good wine at dinner
every day for two months. Then came
back the sick headaches and pains in
the joints, from which he had suffered
in early life until he abstained entirely
from alcoholic drinks. Moreover,
after his abandonment of alcohol, the
joints gradually lost their stiffness.
ana ultimately became as supple and
mobile as they were in youth, and con-
tinue absolutely so to this day.
We may tell Sir Henry Thomp-
son that we do not suffer from
sick headaches; but how many
moderate drinkers of 81, or even 62, are
ready to swear that their joints have
ali the suppleness of youth? Are old
gentlemen willing to ascribe what they
call rheumatism to the habitual though
modest glass?
There is so much controversy about
alcohol among the medical experts that
the moderate drinker plumes himself
on the ancient wisdom of the middle
course between topers and abstainers.
On the subject of cakes Calverleys
schoolboy had learned that "eXcruciat-
ing aches resulted If we ate too many"
For the moderate drinker this philoso-
ply comprises cakes and ale, and when
the aches come he puts them down to
chills. A French writer has collected
the opinions of GO physicians in Paris
on the effects of alcohol. Thirty-four
affirm that a moderat use, say a bottle
of wine a day, is beneficial. Nine will
have no compromise with alcohol in
any form, and II declare that to the
health of most people one bottle a day
makes no difference whatever. One
doctor declined to hazard any opinion
on the plea that the varieties of human
physiology are too great to warrant
any positive judgment. But Sir Henry
Thompson is in a position to speak not
Only for himself. ut may be fairly
said that one example does not suffice
to prove a case. But it is not single
example, and really designates a very
large class of active men among all
ranks, possessing a more or less similar
temperament, of which type is here
daSnriho6 rG if iS hot
have found it so successful" This
all as supple as athletes, ought to give
pause to many an aged man when he
is about to order his evening toddy. But
he may say that the zeal of the convert
belongs to youngsters of 50.
Food, not drink, however, is the bur-
den of Sir Henry Thompson.s practi-
cal counsel. Half our bodily ills are
due to improper eating. 1t is a COM
mon fallacy that, as we grow older, we
need more nourishment, "the extra
glass of cordial, the superlatively
strong extract Of food" Sir Henry
Thompson draws an alarming picture
of the head of the family sinking to de-
cay because his affectionate spouse
plies him with dainties he cannot d.
gest, the egg whipped up with sherry,
the insidious calf's-foot jelly, the mop
perfume cup of cocoa. Many a fond
wife is slowly doing her lord to death,
for all the world as if she were a |
poisoner in one of Miss Braddon's
early novels. She urges him to try
patent foods, which are so nutritious"
that his stomach cannot stand them, |
and she imagines that even his drinks |
must have nutriment, forgetting that |
the primary object Of drink is to sat-
isfy thirst" and that to take milk, for |
with meat is lone of the J
greatest dietary blunders that can be |
Even the dentist is an unwilling |
agent of mischief. He gives you a new |
set of masticators as efficacious as the
originals; but he does not warn you |
that the loss of your natural teeth Is |
an indication that the body needs less |
food than it demanded in your heyday. |
Your tailor is also in the innocent con-
spiracy, for he congratultes you on the |
increase OF your girth, as if it were
the glory of the citizen to cut into a I
deal of material when he is ordering
new clothes. Here, we suspect, Sir
Henry Thompson is OVERRIDING the case.
Is a man really fattered when he is
told that his waist has grown another
inch? "And you, poor deluded victim,
are more than half willing to believe
that your increasing size is an equiva-l
lent to increasing health and strength,
as your wife emphatically
takes that view. and regards your
portliness with approval"
Is she sincere? Or is her approval
part of that discrimination from which
women are not yet freed? Does the
fondest wife. when the husbands
broad back Is turned, sometimes drop
a tear Of esthetic regret because it is
so broad? How much is added to person.
al dignity byphysical bulk is question
on which we should like to take the
opinion of the middle classes. Can a
thin man rule his household with the
moral weight of stout man? Sir
Henry Thompson does not go into that,
but he says that not one stout man in
so lives to a good old age.
1.-THE typical man of so or 80 years,
still retaining respectable amount of
energy of body and mind, is lean and
spare, and lives on slender rations."
1t does not follow that he must have a
hungry look, and be a conspirator,
like Cassius. Very thoughtfully Sir
Hanrxy hoc mt h;c nortr,;t <I,;S