Year: 1874

A writer on health, in an English journal, incidentally said that at the age of forty or whereabouts most of us could tell pretty accurately of what com- plaints we should die, "barring acci- dents."

 This doubtless seemed to many persons rather startling remark. But, startling as the saying may seem, it is doubtless very near the truth. After 8 man has lived forty years in the world, he has found out his vulnerable point, and knows the corner round which his enemy is always lurking, in readiness to attack him. In the strongest piece of machinery there is generally weak place, although it may not always be detected. Yet, observed or unobserved, it is there, and will produce it's effects sooner or later. And how to guard against it's consequences-how to stave off that break. down which it is eventu- ally destined to produce-is, after all, the great secret of taking care of ones health. The writer gave many hints on this subject, some of which were very valuable, while few must, for the gen. erality of mankind, be set aside as inn practicable. They might be beneficial if they could be carried out ;; but the difficulty is that they cannot be carried out. It is like the advice so often given by doctors to sick persons, to take change of air and a long holiday. But these emedies-doubtless the most potent of all which are known to medi- cal men-are beyond the reach of nine-tenths of mankind. And there fore it is eften necessary to get on with out them.

 Any one who has watched the growth of children is we'll aware of the difficult ty of preserving continuous state of good health. From the cradle to the grave all kinds of maladies beset the path. The utmost care of children will not always ward off the foe, as too many of us know to our sorrow. It may be said that the children who receive less care sometimes get on better, and the poor bare-footed and ragged children of the street are pointed to in verifca- ton of the remark. But how many children of this kind sink into the grave almost unnoticed The mortality re- turns of this very summer in New York show that hundreds disappear in the struggle it is only the strongest who survive. When the dangerous period of childhood is passed, with all it's attend ant diseases, there is still many rock ahead. In the midst of apparent good health, flaw appears which is perhaps destined to exercise it's influence throughout the remainder of existence. Nor can all the "rules ever devised by physiologists or philosophers guard against such evils as these. Rise early" some say-and yet early rising may sometimes be positively injurious. In like manner, even exercise is not always beneficial. There can be no doubt that temperance is the surest road to health.

 After all, the number of thoroughly healthy men or women in the world is exceedingly small-so small that it would astonish us if we could only as- certain it. An enormous proportion of the hard work of life is done by ma chinery which can only be described as being in a rickety condition. The amount of nervous energy sometimes possessed by persons whose bodily health is of the poorest kind, must often have surprised us all. They seem as though Duff of wind would sweep them away, and yet they outlive storms before which many an apparently in vincible frame is obliged to yield. Such men, as a rule, know just how far their strength will carry them, and sell dom make too great demand upon it. They "humor the weak place. And this is, perhaps, as great secret in the art of taking care of ones self as any other that can be named.