Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1888 — Does Excitement Shorten Life? [ARTICLE]

Does Excitement Shorten Life?

Scientific American. Whoever hat studied man’s earthly tenure and the caused whieh tend to lengthen er curtail it, will have scarcely failed to notioe how contradictory is the evidence of those we naturally look to to explain them, and that their evidence, even when they agree, does not always accord with what woqld seem to be the facto as they appear around us. One authority says general physical development is necessary to prolong life, while another insists this is not required if the day’s employment does not call for physicaLexertion. Dr. D, B. Richardson, an eminent English authority, declares, among many obvious, though scarcely novel, propositions, that everything that quickens the action oi the heart, any

kind of excitement, taxes and reduces the Btorage of life. If this were said of those naturally feeble or inheriting disease, or even of those leading sedentary liveß and living from day to day without the invigorating benefits of fresh air and exercise, it would seem reasonable, for one does not haveto be a skillful physiologist to know that excitement affects the nerves as well as the heart. But is the statement strictly true when referring, as here, to the entire human fami-

ly? Surely soldiers engaged in actual warfare, and sailors in peace, as well as war, live among excitement, besides being notoriously addicted to indulgences, as to drinking and smoking, yet they axe long-llyed. Statistics show it and observations corroborate them. The pension list of the British army, giving the ages of the beneficiaries, men who have served in all elimates foi* from twenty to forty years, and excluding those pensioned sooner because of “wounds received whiie in the performance of duty,” showm that soldiers do not die as other men doj so it is with the naval pensioners of the Green which Hospital, now scattered over Great Britain because of its abolishment. In the merchant service to-day it is no uncommon thing to find a man seventy years old in charge of a vessel —a post requiring activity of body as well as of mind. From this it would appear that e sound human body can withstand hunger and exposure, and even frequent,excitement, if only there is plenty of fresh air and exercise of a vigorous kind thrown in.