WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY?

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 108, 9 May 1896, Page 2

WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY?

"Ik tho coming that," said a famous English poafc, "a manor woman eighty or one hundred years old will be more beautiful than the youth or maiden of twenty, as tho ripe fruit: in more beautiful and fragrant than .tho green. These ripe man and women will havo no vMoklea on the brow, no grey hair, no bend and feeble bedies. Go the contrary they will have perfect hearing, clear eyesight, sound teeth, elastic step, and mental vigour." Does this sound absurd and impossible? Why ehould ib 2 Peoplo over one hundred years old are frequently meb with in tiiese days, as they have been aa far as human records go back. A man is of no real value until he is paab fifty and gained control of hia passions and acquired some practical wisdom. After tbab he ougbb to have from fifty to eevenfcy-five working year* before him.. Whoso dieß short, of one hundred (bar violence) dies of his own folly or thab of his ancestors. One chief thing, however, we must learn. What ia ib 1 Take an illustration—such aa we see multitudes of on every, eido. Mr Richard Legatbe of Now Boliagbroke, near Boston, Lincolnshire, is a man now somewhab over seventy. He is a farmer, well known and highly reepeefced in his diatricb. In *ho spring of 1891 he had an attack of influenza from which he never fully recuperated. The severe symptoms pasaed away, of coursie, bub he remained weak. No doubt food would have boilb him up, provided he could have eaten and digested it. Yet here wa« the trouble, hia appetite was poor, and what little he took, as a matter of necaaeiby rathor than of relish, seemed to act wrone with him. Instead of giving him strength ib actually produced pain and distress in the sides, chest, and stomach. 'then again—which is a common experience—he would feel a craving for something to oat; yob on sibbing down to a meal, in the hope to enjoy it, bhe stomach would suddenly rebel against the proceeding, and ho would barn from tho table without having swallowed a mouthful. Nothing could come of this bub increasing weakness, and ib waan'b long before it was all he could do to summon strength bo walk aboub. As for working on his farm, that, bo bo sure, was not to be thought of. He had a doctor attending him, as we should expect. If the services'\of a learned medical man are ever needed they must bo in such a case—when nature seems to bo all broken up, and the machinery runs slow, as our family clocks do when we have forgotten fco wind them at the usual honr. Well, Mr Legjjate took the prescribed medicines, but gob no better. He asked the doctor why thab wae, and be appeared to be puzzled for an answer ab first. Naturally enough a doctor doesn'b like to admib that bin medicines are doing no good, because he expects to be paid for them ; and then there ia his profeßeional pride, besides. . ■ .

However, ha finally iaid, "If my medicines fail to make you bettor it is owing to your age." That idea was plain a» a pikestaff, nod if tho patient had never got any batter afterwards, why who could dispute what the doctor said? Nobody, of course. It would look just ttß though MrsLoggate were really going to piocos from old age. Put gomobhing subsequently happened which spoils that easy theory of the case. What'itwaß he tells us in a letter dated Fabruary 3rd, 1893

After doctoring several months without receiving any beoefife, 1 determined to try Mother Seigel's Curative Syrnp. I gob a bottle from Mr G. H. Hanson, chemist, New Bolingbroke. After taking, tho syrnp for a week I waa much better. _ I had a good appetite, and what I ato digested and strengthened me, and by the time I had taken two bottlea I waa icell.and strong as ever.' You may publish this statement if you think proper.—(Signed) Richard Lkgoatk."

So it proved, after all, that Mr Leggate waa not suffering from old ape (at seventy ? Nonsense 1), bub from indigestion and dyspepsia. When Mother Soigol's greab discovery routed that, he felb ?' well and strong ag ever."

Now for the moral: Ib ia not Father Time who mows people down thus early in lifa ; ib is the Demon of Dyspepsia. Keep him away, and—barring accidents—you may live a century