Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1903 — DEATH IS NEVER NATURAL. [ARTICLE]

DEATH IS NEVER NATURAL.

•tertlißK Theory of ■ Dlitla«alaM Exponent of Science. Nobody ever dies a natural death. Old age, the premature old age, which Is the only kind we know, la .a pathological condition. Such are ths opinions of Dr. Elie Metchnlkoff, not a fakir, but a serious person, who studies things through a microscope at tbe Pasteur Instlttfe. Each of us swarms with tiny beasts of prey, which travel up and down our bodies, seeking wbat they may devour. By attacking our beneficent ceils, previously weakened by the unwise life we all lead, they produce an artificial lenillty, the malady which kills those men whom In our Ignorance we call re ry old. Looked at from Dr. MetchnlkofTu standpoint, old age Is merely a problem for medical science. How shall we help our beneficent cells In their Struggle against the enemy? One way would be to take every baby and cut out his larger Intestine, an organ which ought not to have been included In our anatomy. At present this cannot be done, aa the operation Is risky. A second method would be to destroy the beasts of prey. But we do not yet know what they exactly are. Some are a legacy left by our ancestors, immediate and remote, who suffered from heritable diseases.

Others, more mysterious, are perhaps the Instruments of a sort of essential disease, of that old age which precociously kills all who do not die still earlier of tuberculosis, pneumonia, the bubonic plague, or croup. Until we know more we can only reform our filet, eating little meat or none and subsisting chiefly on butter, cheese and sour milk. By these Imperfect means we may prolong life a little —200 years or so. Up to 90, for example, we may be as active as the President of the United States, and thereafter, for 100 years more, as reflective aa the prime minister of England. This would still leave us half a century for art, philanthropy, poker or croquet But when death does finally draw near win not Its approach be as distasteful as ever? By no means, says tbe doctor. Under present conditions death is like an unnatural sleep, which overtakes ua early In the day—say before dinner. In the future It will come after a full meal, when the day's work Is done. — CoUler’s Weekly.