WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY?

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 7

WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY?

“ In the coining 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 I ho green. These 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 vigour.” Does this sound absurd and impossible ? V, by should it r People ever one hundred years old are frequently met with in these days, as there have been as lar 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 somo practical wisdom. After that ho ought to have from fifty to seventy-llvo working years before him. \\ hoso dies short of one

hundred (bar violence) dies of his own folly or that of his ancestors. One chief thing, however, wo most learn. What is it? Take an illustration—such as wo see multitudes of on every side.

Mr Richard Legatte, of New Bolingbroke, near Boston, Lincolnshire, is a man now somewhat over 70. lie is a farmer, well known and highly respected in his district. In the spring of 181)1 ho had an attack of influenza, from which he never fully recuperated. Tho severe symptoms passed away, of course, but lie remained weak. No doubt food would have built him up, provided ho could have eaten and digested it. Yet hero was tho trouble, bis appetite was poor, and what little ho took,

as a matter of necessity rather than of relish, seemed to act wrong with him. Instead of giving him strength it actuallyproduced pain an distress in tho sides, chest and .stomach.

Then, again—which is a common experience—he would feel a craving for something to cat; yet on sitting down to a meal, in the hope to enjoy it, the stomach would suddenly rebel against tho proceeding, and ho would turn from tho table without having swallowed a mouthful. Nothing could come of this but increasing weakness, and it wasn’t long before it was all ho could do to summon strength to walk about. As for woi king on his farm, that, to bo sure, was not to be thought of. He had a doctor attending him, as wo should expect. If tho services of a learned medical man are ever needed they must he in such a case-—when nature seems to be all broken up, and tho machinery runs slow, as our family clock's do when we have forgotten to wind them at the usual hour.

Well, Mr Legal to took the proscribed medicines, but got no Letter. Ho asked tho doctor why that was, and lie appeared to be puzzled for an answer at first. Naturally enough a doctor doesn’t like to admit that his medicines are doing no good, because be expects to bo paid for them ; and then there is his professional pride, besides.

However, ho finally said, “If my medicines tail to make you better it is owing to your age.” That idea was plain as a pikestaff, and if the patient had never got any better afterwards, why, who could dispute what the doctor said ? Nobody, of course. It would look just as though Mr Legatte were really going to pieces from old ago. But something subsequently happened which spoils that easy theory of the case. What it was, ho tells us in a letter dated February 3rd, 1893.

“ Alter doctoring several months without receiving any benefit, 1 determined to try Mother Soigol’s Curative Syrup. I got a bottle from Mr G. if. Hanson, Chemist, New Bolingbroke. After taking the Syrup for a week I was much better. I had a good appetite, and what I ate digested and strengthened me ; and by the time I had taken two bottles J was well and strong as ever. You may publish this statement if you think proper. (Signed) Richard Legatte.”

So it proved, after all, that Mr Loggato was not suffering from old ago (at seventy '? Nonsense .'), but from indigestion and dyspepsia. When Mother Seigel’s great discovery routed lhal lie felt “ well and strong ns ever.”

Now for the mortal: 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.