WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY ?

Lake County Press, Issue 703, 9 April 1896, Page 7

WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY ?

“In the coming time,” said a famous English poet,” “ a man or woman 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, sound teeth, elastic step, and mental vigor.” Dees this sound absurd and impossible ? Why should it? People over one hundred years old are frequently met with in these days, as they have been as far as human records go back. A man is of no real valuo until he is past fifty and gained control of ids passions and acquired some practical wisdom. After that iie 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 on every side.

Mr Richard Legatte of New Bolingbroke, near Boston, Lincolnshire, is a man now somewhat over seventy. He is a farmer, well known and highly respected m his district. In the spring of 1891 he had an attack of influenza from which he never fully recuperated. The severe symptoms passed away, of course, but he remained 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 Teliah, 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; yet on sitting down to a meal, in. the hope to enjoy it, the stomach would suddenly rebel against the prorei ding, and he would, turn from the table without having swallowed a mouthful.

Nothing could come of this but increasing weakness and it wasn’t long before it was alb he could do to summon strength to walk about. As for working on bis farm, that to be sure, was uot to be thought olj He had a doctor attending him, as we should expect.. If the services of a learned medical man. are ever needed they must he in such a case—when nature seems to be ah broken up, and the machinery runs slow, as our family ekeks do when we have forgotten to wind them at the usual hour.

Well, Mr Leggate took the prescribed medicines, but got no better. He asked the doctor why that was, .and he- appeared to be puzzled for an answer at first. Naturally enough a doctor dosu’t like to admit that his medicines are doing no good, because he expects to be paid for.th- m ; and then there is his professional pride, besides. However, he finally said, “if my medicines fail to make you better it fs owing to your age.” That idea was plain as a pikestaff, and if the patient had ucv.er got any better afterwards, why w.bo could dispute what tlie doctor said? Nobody, of course. It would look just as though Mr Leggate were really going to pieces from old age. But something subsequently happened, which spoils that easy theory ot the case. What it was he tells us in. a letter dated. February 3rd, 1893.

‘‘After doctoring several months without receiving any benefit, I determined to-tty Mother Seigcl’s Curative Syrup. 1 got a bottle from Mr G, H. Hanson, Chemist, New Bolingbroke. Afce-- taking the Syrup tor a week I was much better. I hud a good appetite* and what I ate digested and strengthened me ; and’ by the time I had taken two bott'es I was well and strong as ever. You may publish this statement if you think proper. (Signed) Richard Leggate.” So it proved, after all, that Mr Leggate was not suffering from old age (at neveuty ? JVbnsrn.se /). but from indigestion and dyspepsia. When Mother Seigel’s great discovery routed that, ho felt “ well and strong ft-) ever. * Now for the moral: 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 a century.