WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY ?

Lake County Press, Issue 702, 2 April 1896, Page 7

WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY ?

“ In the coming time,” sai l a famous English poet,” “ a man or v onwn eighty or one hundred years old will be more beautiful than the youth or maiden of twenty, as the ripe fruit is more beautiful and fragrant than the green. Those ripe men and women will have no wrinkles on the brow, no grey hair, no bent and feeble bodies. On the contrary they will have perfect hearing, clear eyesight, souud teeth, elastic step, and mental vigor.” Does this souud absurd and impossih.c ? Why should it? People over one hundred years old are frequently met v ith in these days, as they have been as far as human records go back, A man is of no real value until he is past fifty and gained control of his passions and acquired some practical wisdom. After that he ought to have from fifty to seventy-five working years before him. Who dies short of one hundred .(bar violence) dies of his own folly or that of his ancestors. One chief thing, however, we must learn. What is it? Take an illustration—such as we see multitudes of ou every side. Mr Richard Lcgatte of New Bolingbrokc, near Boston, Lincolnshire, is a man now somewhat aver seventy. He is a farmer, well known and highly respected in his district, In the spring of '18!)1 ho had an attack of influenza from which he never fully recuperated. The severe symptoms passed away, of course, but he remaiued weak. No doubt food would have built him up, pro vided he could have eaten and digested it. Yet here was the trouble, his appetite was poor, and what little he took, as a matter of necessity rather than of relish, seemed to act wrong with him. . Instead of giving him strength it 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 eat - r yet ou sitting down to a meal, in the hope to enjoy it, the stomach would suddenly rebel against the proceeding, and lie would turn from the tablo without having swallowed a mouthful-

Nothing could conic of this but increasing weakness' aud it wasn’t long belore it was all he could do to summon strength to walk about. As for working on his farm, that to be sure, was not to be thought oij He had a doctor attending him, as we should expect. If the services of a learned medical man are ever needed they must be in such a case—when nature seems to be all broken up, and the machinery runs slow, as our family decks do when we have forgotten to wind them at the usual hour. Well, Mr Leggatc took the prescribed medicines, but got no better. He asked the doctor why that was, and he appeared to he puzzled for an answer at first. Naturally enough a doctor dosu’t like to admit that his medicines arc doing no good, because he expects to be paid for them ; and then there is his- professional pride, besides. However, he finally said, “If my medicines fail to make you belter it is owing to your age.” That idea was plain as a pikestaff, aud if the patient bad never got any belter afterwards, why who could dispute what the doctor said ’ Nobody, of course. It would look just as though Mr Leggate were really going to pieces from old ;.ge. But something subsequently happened which spoils that easy theory of tlie ease. What it was he tells us in a Letter dated February 3rd. 1893. “Aftor doctoring several months witlumt receiving any benafit, I determined to try Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup. I got n bottle from Mr G. 11. Han SOU, Chemist, New Bolingbroke. After taking the Syrup tor a week I was much better. I had a good appetite, and what I ate digested and strengthened me; and by (he time I had taken two bottles 1 was well and strong as ever. You may publish this statement if you think proper. (Signed) Richard Leggate.” Ho it proved, after all, that Mr Leggate was not suffering from old age (at seventy ? Nonsense!), but from indigestion aud dyspepsia. When Mother Seigel’s great discovery routed that, he felt “ well aud strong at ever. *

Now for the mora l j It is not Father Time who mows people down thus early in life ; it is the Demon of Dyspepsia. Keep him away, and—barring accidents—you may live u century.