HYGIENE OF OLD AGE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1580, 11 March 1887, Page 3

HYGIENE OF OLD AGE.

The teeth, in old age, are, of course, lost, and they should, unless under exceptional circumstances, be replaced by artificial teeth, for the thorough chewing of food is even more necessary in the old than in the young, because in the old the digestive powers are apt to fail. With the best artificial teeth mastication is apt to be imperfectly performed; hence the food of the aged should be soft and readily comminuted, and especially should it be of easy digestion. Very few old people need stimulating diet; very many are injured by an excess ot nitrogenous food. The kidneys, like all other organs, are feeble, and if meats and other rich foods are used in exces?, they greatly increase the strain upon these organs. Milk and milk products or preparations of bread-stuffa cooked with milk should form a very large proportion of the food of the ordinary aged individual, but individual peculiarities ditl'er so much that personal medical counsel should in all cases be taken so that the diet may be regulated to the needs of the individual case. Very many old people are hurt by the use of food in excessive quantity ; but little exercise can be taken, all growth has ceased and the bodily furnaces which make heat are able to destroy but very little of food fuel. Some little time Bince I had occasion to lecture on this subject at the Philadelphia Hospital, and an assertion that I then made that zrost old people are more comfortable, enjoy better health, and probably live longer for the use of wine, has met with very severe disapprobation at the hands of some of the profession, whose strong sympathy with the temperance movement dominates their judgment. No valid reasons have, however, so tar as my judgment goes, been brought forward to leal me to change my opinion. In the overfed American people the habitual use of wine during the youthful or middle age and vigorous health, is, we think, an injury rather than a good; but when the powers of life are failing, when digestion is weak, and the multitudinous small ills of feebleness perplex and annoy, one or two glasses of wine at dinner aid digestion, quiet for the time being much nervous irritation, and in no way do harm. The sum total of the ruin wrought by alcohal in the world is appalling, but it is not lessened by our shutting our eyes to the good that wine properly used may achieve. If in the aged there is a distinct failure ot vital power, and especially of digestive power, the call for the habitual use of alcoholic liquors is, iu my opinion, imperative. The danger of the formation of any evil habits when a man has crossed the line of seventy is so slight that the most conscientious physician need not hesitate in recommending the daily use of alcoholic beverages to his patient.— Br. S, 0. Wood, in Annalt of Hygiene,