The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-09-12
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YEARS and AGE
Board of Health Bulletin
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| Board of Health Bulletin)
/, How old are you?
We measure our youth by years and
our middle life by the same standard,
but the rest of our lives by the vigor
of our bodies andminds-by what we
ican do.
It's a hard proposition-this growing
old,-hard to realize and harder still
to accommodate ourselves to; almost
as hard to realize as the fact that our
children are growing up and are
crowding us out of the strenuous
things of life.
Americans are credited with the am
bition to Idle in the harness." 1t used
to be in the old western days, to meet
the end with our "boots on" And
why not? Why should the last ten or
twenty years of an active life be spent
in useless inactivity? Why should
any of us lose even part of the tense
Interest in human activities that filled
Jour best years?
There's good reason why many, il
not most, of us do. It's because we
have wasted our capital-our physical
capital-or used it too lavishly in the
prime of life and it is exhausted when
1--WE should still have a splendid re-
serve. When we should still be &C.
tive, our own physical weaknesses con-
Germ us to the exclusion of wider and
bigger things. Soon we are forgotten
and go to the scrap heap before our
time.
Is there anything more pitiable than
a man of so or 60 tottering about with
the weaknesses of 80 years, complain
ing of his own private assortment of
ills and a nuisance to everybody? On
the other hands, what is grander than
the man of 70 or 80 years, smiling and
loved by al, taking an active and intel
ligent interest and sympathy in the af-
fairs of younger men and giving no
advice unless it is asked for?
Under present conditions of health
knowledge and sanitation. one of every
four Americans dies before he is five
years old, and one-third never com.
Iplete their twentieth year. 1t is only
the fiittest that survive to do the real
work of life. Like the soldiers that
make our armies, they are picked men.
But why shouldn't the picked, the fit,
be larger proportion of those who
start in the race?
Most of the babies die because they
don't have fair start in life from
unfit parentage. This inheritance
may have its influence to mature
years, but when mans strength car
ries him through the first score of
years, it's largely his own fault if it
doesn't take him to his rightful three
score and ten.
The conservation of energy, the con-
sevative use of ones physical
strength, adds to that strength. It
makes him ready to meet emergencies
that demand the greatest continued
exertiOn. Engineers calculate the de-
terioration of rapidly moving machin-
cry at 20 per cent or more each year.
The slower machine may last ten or
twenty years.
All OF which suggests that the hui.
man machine-more complicated than
any yet devised by man-requnres
careful watching. The strenuous ex.
ertions and anxieties of the thirties
and forties overtax the fifties and six.
ties and bring the final breakdown ten
aor twenty years before it is due. The
prudent man heeds the warnings of
hardening arteries and stiffening mus.
cles, OF the headaches that come after
prolonged mental effort, of failing eve.
sight, and of the inability to do or en-.
dure what once was easy. And the
prudent man faces the fact that these
warnings are to be found, whether or
not he may sense them himself.
Always the oncoming years, whether
or not they seem to be as full of vigor
as those that are gone, bring the wise
necessity of becoming a closer init.
mate of the family doctor. With his
training he will detect the warnings
that you don't believe exist-yet. We.
all of us, have to face the inevitable
ending of life, and all of us hope to
put it off. Few of us get so tired of
life that we are willing and waiting for
pts ending. But the real way to most.
pone the end is to be prepared TO
Give, to keep the machine. the bodv
and the mind, in good repair. Above
all, don't worry, be at peace yourself
and with all men that the days NAV he
long in the land.
IN the Circuit Court Of ths recth ,ua..,., al,