Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1879 — Longevity. [ARTICLE]

Longevity.

There is no end of books written by English and French medical men on the preservation of health and attainment of longevity. For the most part, they are not of any practical value. They expatiate on the constituent elements of the body, the chemistry of digestion, the osseous structure, and suchlike matters. They strangely miss the main object in their theme, which is to point out a course of living, with mental and bodily conditions tliat would tend to secure'health and the protraction of existence. Does this arise from want of grasp, or from a fear of treading on popular prejudices? On the topic of health, the world stands in need of a writer with the fearlessness of Luther, the acute reasoning of Pascal, and the incisive humor of Moliere. The latest learned authority on health and long life bores us with lacteals, azotised substances, albumen, lumbar lymphatics, chyle, the thoracic duct and similar jargon. A long list is given of persons who lived to be upward of 100 s'ears of age. What did these centenarians know of fibrin, the mesenteric glands, and Jill the rest of it? Some were paupers, many were hard-work-ing people in common life. Most likely net half a dozen in the whole lot knew anything about, their inside. They lived in a variety of ways. The diet of a woman who lived to be 117 is said to have been buttermilk and greens, of whjch we have some doubt. Some were very temperate, %nd others quite the reverse. One old fellow who reached 194 drank a pint and a half of London gin daily. An Irishman who lived to De 111 drank plentifully of rum and brandy till the last. With exceptions of that kind, to be reckoned wonders in Natnre, temperance and simplicity of diet were the chief characteristics. Old age Bad been attained not by any hard and fast rule, but by a number of circumstances, as seen by general experience. Chambers' Journal.